


Thorne in the Side

by Armbar_Nation



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-10-17 06:51:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 70,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10588698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Armbar_Nation/pseuds/Armbar_Nation
Summary: A woman being added to The Shield isn't a popular decision with the three brothers. Things go from bad to worse when they find out that the woman in question is Lucy Thorne, the most unpopular woman on the roster. Vince McMahon's decision will prove to be a life-changing one for Lucy and Seth, but love at first sight this definitely is not.





	1. Chapter 1

_A/N: In this world, The Shield didn't split, so Roman didn't end up getting all the hate he currently does from a lot of fans. I'll also be tweaking who is on what roster when needed, but with the superstar shakeup only days away, I don't see that as a problem._

_As always, I will be referring to wrestlers by their in-ring names wherever possible._

* * *

Three men dressed in black body armour walked out of a locker room. None of them looked very happy, particularly the scruffy-looking one in the lead of the trio.

"If this is about to go the way we think it is, I'm going to lose my cool," Dean Ambrose promised his two brothers.

"Dean, calm down," the much taller man who was immediately behind him urged.

"No, Roman," Dean insisted. "I'm not going to let them do it without saying my piece."

"Saying your piece is okay," the third man of the group said. "It's how you say it that you need to be careful about."

"Why, Seth? Huh?" Dean asked heatedly, turning and walking backwards along the hallway for a moment as he looked at the other two men. "Why do I need to be careful? Will they ruin our team? Oh wait, that's what they're doing anyway!" he exclaimed sarcastically.

"We don't actually know what Vince wants to see us for," Roman reminded him. "You're assuming. How about we wait to get annoyed until after we've heard what he has to say?"

"I don't need to," Dean griped. "You guys know the rumours as well as I do. It's been talked about for days. Since they added Nikki Bella to the new Authority stable, and The Shield happen to be feuding with The Authority, there's going to be a woman added to The Shield. You know what I say to that? Fuck no! The three of us are The Shield, no one else, and certainly not a woman."

Seth knew Dean didn't mean his comment in a sexist way, not really. He meant that he didn't see how the dynamic of the group could continue with a woman involved. There was logic to his concern, Seth had to admit. The years they had spent together on WWE's main roster as The Shield had been the best years of all of their lives. That made change a disconcerting prospect. Even so, going into Vince McMahon's office with a bad attitude wasn't going to help anything. It would likely make things worse.

"We both get that," he assured Dean. "We're just saying we need to hear Vince out first, then put our points across in the right way. It's not going to go well if we walk in there and tell him to f' himself."

Dean grunted. "You don't know how tempted I am."

As was often the case, Roman decided to take charge of the group. "No one's going to say anything until we've heard Vince out," he said firmly. "Then, if he tells us what we think he's going to tell us, we can try and change his mind."

Following his closest friends along the hallway, Seth found himself wondering if the rumours about Vince adding Charlotte Flair to The Shield could really be true.

Everyone in the locker room liked Charlotte, and respected her for how quickly her in-ring work had improved since she had graduated from NXT. The chance to join The Shield after several months out of action with a knee injury would be a tremendous, and arguably deserved opportunity for her. But that didn't mean it was the right thing for The Shield, and that was the big bone of contention the three guys had.

"Here goes nothing," Dean said when they reached the Chairman's office. He knocked on the door, then lead the team inside when McMahon's booming voice instructed them to enter.

"Ah, good," Vince said as the trio walked into the office. He rose from behind his desk and walked around to shake hands with each of them.

"We got word you wanted to speak to us," Roman said pleasantly after his handshake.

"That's right," Vince said. "As you know, you're working Owens, Joe and Balor as the second incarnation of The Authority for the foreseeable future. Nikki was added to their stable last week with her new businesswoman gimmick, so I want a woman with you, too."

Typical Vince, Seth thought. Straight to the point. "We heard that might be what you had in mind," he replied cautiously. "Honestly, we're not sure a woman is a good fit for The Shield. We think it might be better left how it is."

"That's not going to work," Vince said definitively. "The Authority have a woman now, so you guys need one, too. I can understand you have reservations about changing your successful dynamic, but I'm going to need you to go with me on this. There is a lot of potential in putting a woman with you, even after this angle is done. You know how big this women's revolution thing is. It was sceptical too at one time, but no, we have to get behind it. It's what people want to see. Besides, we have the right woman lined up for the job."

Already seeing that they had come to fight a losing battle, Roman asked, "Charlotte, right? That's what we heard."

Vince looked confused for a second. "Charlotte? No. She's out another few weeks at least with her knee. Her rehab isn't going as well as we'd hoped."

"Who is it then?" Roman asked, noting the increasingly annoyed look on Dean's face as the news got worse and worse.

"We're putting Lucy Thorne with you," Vince announced, making it sound like he was handing them a generous gift.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Dean groaned, throwing his head back theatrically. "Why her, Vince? A woman is bad enough, but does it really have to be her? All she's going to do is bring heat on us, and we're supposed to be face. Plus she's a nightmare to work with; everyone knows that. I don't want her on our team."

Seth wouldn't have been quite so forward about it, but he shared Dean's concerns. Lucy Thorne was not the right woman for The Shield, on or off the screen. The big problem was, however, that the English woman was the McMahon's favourite, especially Stephanie, who had originally scouted Lucy and talked her daddy into signing her a couple of years earlier.

That status as favourite had rapidly turned Lucy into the second coming of John Cena, at least as far as the negative aspects of Cena's career were concerned. Despite her limited moveset and her inability to sell for others, Lucy had been booked as practically unbeatable ever since she had debuted on NXT. Seeing what was going on, the fans had been quick to react negatively to it. Now, even though she was booked and written as a face, Lucy was booed heavily in every arena she set foot in, unless it happened to be in her home country.

Backstage, there were further problems. Being handpicked by Stephanie McMahon and then given a ridiculous push had only worsened Lucy's already abrasive attitude in the back, and she was now disliked by many on the roster, including all three members of The Shield.

While it was true that being five feet eight, dark haired and built like the side of a house gave her the right look for The Shield, that was the only way she was even close to the right fit for the team.

"Dean's right, Vince," Roman said. "Lucy's going to bring heat on us. Why would you want to put someone who's going to get booed with us, when we're working the top heel stable? It makes no sense."

"And besides," Seth decided to add, "she's not even that great in the ring, let's be honest about it."

"Part of the idea of putting her with you is to stop people booing her," Vince said, ignoring Seth completely. "They're not supposed to be booing her; she's supposed to be the new face of the women's division. Everyone always cheers The Shield, so this will be good for all involved."

"They boo her because you push her so hard," Dean said, almost managing to keep the sarcasm out of his tone. It was ludicrous at times how Vince couldn't see what was so obvious to everyone else.

"Enough," Vince said, starting to lose his cool. "You're going to be teaming with Lucy Thorne against The Authority. The decision has been made, and I expect you to make a good job of it. We've got high hopes for this rivalry leading up to Wrestlemania. Like I've told you all before, we plan for this year to be huge for The Shield, so don't make me change my mind."

The boss paused to let that sink in, the continued, "Now, you're all more experienced than Lucy, so I expect you to take her under your wings, if necessary. If you're going to be among our top guys, you need to be relishing this kind of challenge, and delighted by this kind of opportunity."

"I thought Lucy was injured, anyway?" Dean asked sullenly. He made is perfectly plain that he was anything but delighted about anything that was being discussed.

"She was injured. Now she's ready to come back," Vince said, as if explaining to a child. "She recovered really fast. A torn pectoral is a nasty injury, yet she's ready to go already."

"Okay, Vince, we'll take Lucy Thorne on as a member of The Shield," Roman said reluctantly, coming to the conclusion that this wasn't the hill he wanted The Shield to die on. "But if it doesn't work out during this rivalry, either on-screen or off, I want us to revisit the whole thing after Wrestlemania. Can we agree on that?"

"You got it," Vince smiled, now that he had gotten his own way. "Cheer up, guys. You've got the biggest star in women's wrestling on your team."

Seth managed to hold in a sigh, and then asked, "When is she going to debut with us?"

"A week from tonight," Vince said. "The night after the Rumble. All three of you will be eliminated from the Rumble match by Authority members, with one of those eliminations coming thanks to Nikki getting up on the apron and hitting a low blow. That sets us up for the two month program going into Mania, with the four on four feud."

"And who's going over in this feud?" Dean asked, ready to explode if he was told he would be going through two months of this shit to put the other team over at WWE's biggest event of the year.

"You are," Vince smiled. "A Shield win over The Authority will be a Wrestlemania moment."

"Okay, thanks, Vince," Roman said politely, hiding his irritation perfectly. "We'll get going, if there's nothing else?"

"Thanks for stopping by," Vince said, with the typical look he got in his eyes when he won a battle.

The complaints didn't start again until The Shield were back in their locker room. This time, Dean was the last one through the door. "Well that went well," he said with heavy sarcasm after slamming the door closed. "Why do I feel like we just rolled over and had our fucking bellies rubbed in there?"

Seth was wondering the same thing. They had gone into McMahon's office not wanting a woman on their team, only to find out that it was even worse than that. They were getting pretty much the only woman in the company who they didn't even like as person. Yet, the conversation had totally not gone their way, and they had ended up agreeing to it.

"Vince's mind was made up," Roman said, with some degree of frustration in his voice. He walked over to a steel chair and slumped down onto it. "He was telling us, not asking, and it wasn't our hill to die on, guys," he sighed.

"But it's Lucy fucking Thorne," Dean complained bitterly. "Charlotte I could have lived with if I'd had to, but Lucy? To hell with her, man. They call that stupid finish of hers Thorne in the Side, now she's a thorn in our side. And before you say it, I know that's not funny."

Again, Seth had to agree with Dean. "I'm with you, bro. She's an egomaniac, doesn't care about anyone else, and she's a bully, too, from what I've heard. I don't want to team with that kind of person. I mean, look at this injury she's got; a torn pec or whatever it was. She got that against Sasha, when she was the one doing a move at the time. Then, somehow, Sasha gets the heat for injuring her. It made no sense. Steph's got a woman crush on this bitch, so we're all supposed to love her. The fans are supposed to love her…"

"Right," Dean cut in. "The only problem is, no one other than Steph, Vince and maybe Hunter actually do. She gets shit on all the time because she can't wrestle. She has, like five moves she does regularly, and she can't even sell for others worth a damn."

"It's just because she looks tough," Seth griped. "She's got the badass look, she's got an awesome body, and Steph talked her dad into beating UFC to her signature. That's why they're pushing her to the moon. It's really dumb, even when you try and find the logic in it."

Dean wandered over to his case, which had been left sitting on the bench at the back of the locker room, and angrily tossed it aside. "You know what?" he asked no one in particular. "I bet she'll show up next Monday thinking she's doing us a favour or something by teaming with us. I'm just going to tell her straight to her face that I don't like her, and I didn't want her. She can fu..."

"Okay, ladies, that's enough," Roman cut in irritably. "None of us are happy about this, but we're not going to start talking to Lucy like she's a piece of garbage when we see her next week. I'm not having that. Like it or not, she's our partner now, and besides, she's a lady. You can't just talk to her like you would one of the guys, Dean."

"She wants to be glad about that," Dean muttered under his breath. "A woman in The Shield. This is a joke."

Standing near the door, Seth found himself taking a stance somewhere between his two brothers. He agreed with Dean about not wanting to work with Lucy Thorne, but he agreed with Roman that there were fundamental differences about how a woman should be spoken to, compared to a man. Shrugging, he said, "I guess we're just going to have to wait and see what happens next week."

Little did Seth know, Vince McMahon had been a lot closer to giving the role in The Shield to Charlotte Flair than he had made out. It had basically been a coin flip decision, eventually being decided by the fact that Lucy was fit to return from injury first. That coin flip would eventually come to change Seth Rollins' and Lucy Thorne's lives forever. It would be quite a journey.


	2. Chapter 2

Rarely had anything killed a conversation in the women's locker room as quickly as Lucy Thorne walking in on her first night back managed to do. Unfriendly eyes either turned towards her or away from her, depending on whether the person the eyes belonged to wanted Lucy to feel uncomfortable, or felt uncomfortable themselves in her presence. The exception was Bayley, who greeted Lucy with a smile. It simply wasn't in her nature to be unpleasant or confrontational with anyone.

"Bloody hell," Lucy said cheerily, in her English accent. "Turn the air conditioner up, Bayley. It's pretty chilly in here." She was referring, of course, to the icy reception, not the room temperature.

"Welcome back," Bayley said kindly, moving some of her things to make a space for Lucy to change beside her.

"Thanks," Lucy said, pleased with the fact that no one else had said a word since she'd walked through the door. She stood her case on the bench and opened it up. As she did so, she turned to look at Dana Brooke, who was standing nearby, hands on her hips.

"Hey, Brooke," Lucy said, grinning as she pulled an item out of her case. "I was looking over some retro T-shirts online the other day; decided to get you one. It's perfect for you." She held the white shirt up so everyone could see the black logo on the front of it. "Job squad," Lucy announced, then tossed the shirt at Dana, who caught it on instinct. "You win a match yet, champ?"

"Alright, Lucy, cut the bullshit," Nia said, walking over to stand up to the new arrival. With Charlotte out injured, Nia was the only one in the room who was taller than Lucy, not to mention bigger built.

Even with Nia in her face, Lucy looked around at the other women with a broad smile on her face. She drew each word out as she asked, "Who the fuck is this?"

"You're not funny," Nia pointed out. "You know who I am. We've wrestled each other on house shows."

"Not sure that's what I'd call it," Lucy quipped, implying that Nia couldn't wrestle.

"That's rich, coming from you," Sasha hit back. "The woman with five moves, who couldn't sell ice cream to a child."

"I'm feeling the love!" Lucy exclaimed theatrically, spreading her arms wide. "Although, I don't think I can take criticism from you, Banks. It'd be easier to find Amelia Earhart than a wrestling ticket you ever sold."

Angered, Sasha walked over and stood beside Nia, both confronting the English woman.

"Guys, please stop it," Bayley said, getting in between them. "I don't like this kind of atmosphere in the locker room. Can we all take a breath?"

Emma was the other woman in the room, remaining out of the altercation down at the far end. "Leave it, guys," she urged Nia and Sasha. "You know it's not worth it; you'll get the heat if something happens."

"I'll leave it," Nia said, but she pointed a threatening finger right in Lucy's face. "But you want to keep your mouth shut, you hear?"

Lucy made a face and showed her hands shaking like she was scared to death. "Ooohh, I know when I've been told." She put a friendly arm around Bayley and guided her back to where she had been sitting before. "So, how are you, Bayley? Seems you're the only civilised one in here."

Bayley smiled. "I'm great. I'm really loving my run as the Women's Champion. It's such an awesome feeling, and such an honour."

"I'm glad they gave you a run with it," Lucy said, looking at the belt that was standing nearby on the bench. "I was cheering you on at home, in that match against Sasha. It was quite the moment when you won." Out of the corner of her eye, she looked across at Sasha, who was sitting on the opposite bench. The former champion was angered by the comment, but trying not to show it. Both of them knew the reason Sasha had been made to drop the title was that she'd had a lot of heat with the McMahon family after Lucy had been injured in a match against her.

"Maybe we'll wrestle each other for it at some point?" Bayley wondered, sounding almost like she was sucking up to Lucy. That interested the English woman. Was it because Bayley was afraid of being bullied by her? If so, the fears were unfounded, as Bayley was the only woman on the Raw roster that she actually liked. But then, that was probably because she was also the only one who wasn't worth trying to get a reaction out of. Sasha and Nia were at the other end of the scale. Triggering them was all too easy, and a lot of fun.

"Maybe," Lucy shrugged. "It won't be for a while though; they have me joining The Shield. Stupid idea if you ask me, but no one did ask me."

"You should have asked Vince last time you took his dick out of your mouth," Sasha muttered, just loud enough for everyone to hear.

Lucy roared with laughter and clapped her hands together in appreciation. "That's a good one, Banks. Careful, though, your words might hurt my feelings as bad as your terrible wrestling injured my pec. You already cost me five months."

Sasha exploded to her feet and stormed over to Lucy. "Explain to me exactly how I injured you, when I was the one taking a move from you when it happened?" she raged, not that Lucy seemed bothered by her anger in the least. "I got all the heat from Vince and Steph for it, but we both know you injured yourself, you stupid, clumsy bitch. And you know why? Because you can't wrestle! You never have been able to wrestle. All you do is run through your crappy little move set and kick out of everything people hit you with. No wonder everyone boos you all the time. You're a disgrace to the business, and the fans all know it. Everyone in this locker room knows it. No one wants to work with you, and no one wants to watch you."

"Sash, please sit down," Bayley begged her friend.

"It's okay, Bayley," Lucy said, looking totally relaxed. "Let Sasha say what she really feels. I'm used to people telling me I can't wrestle, I'm used to getting booed all the time, and I'm used to hearing that no one wants to watch me. All I know is, I must be doing something right because whether I get booed or not, I out-sell everyone in this room in merch sales."

"You're pushed all the time," Sasha said bitterly. "How would you not out-sell us? I'd out-sell you easily if I was pushed like you are. All you've got in your favour is Stephanie and Vince like you, that's it. And now you're joining The Shield as well. It's stupid."

"That we can agree on," Lucy sighed. "A woman in The Shield? What a dumb idea. And it's all just so I can wrestle Nikki Bella of all people. Where is she, anyway?"

"Ask me another," Sasha said grumpily as she sat back down next to her gear.

"I think she went to see Kev, Joe and Finn," Emma said from the far end of the room.

"You've got to love the creative around here," Lucy said, shaking her head. "Three guys the fans want to cheer, all working as heels, going against The Shield, who are faces for some reason. Since when were The Shield ever faces? Next thing you know, they'll be turning you heel, Bayley."

Bayley cringed. "Don't say that. I don't think I could ever work as a heel now; I love my character too much. How you can go out there night after night and get booed like you do, I can't even imagine. I'd hate every second of it."

"Not giving a fuck helps," Lucy said, like she was revealing a big secret. "I don't know the people who boo and hurl abuse, so why would I care about their opinion of me? My opinion of me is the only thing that matters to me."

Before anyone could respond to that, the locker room door opened and Nikki Bella walked in. How exactly she had opened the door was something of a mystery, considering the large stack of clothing she was carrying in her arms. "Delivery for you, Lucy," she smiled. "One of the girls stopped me on the way past the costume area and asked me to bring you your new ring gear. There's two sets here."

"Nice one," Lucy said as she took the items from Nikki. It was as close to a thank you as she was going to get.

"I'm looking forward to working with you for the first time," Nikki said enthusiastically as Lucy dumped her new gear next to her case. "We both get a lot of grief about not being able to wrestle. How about we show them what we can really do?"

Lucy turned and looked at Nikki for a moment, running several possible sarcastic responses through her head before deciding to give the girl a break for now. She'd had her fun in the locker room for one night. Besides, she knew that her biggest rival, Sasha, was no real fan of Nikki's work, so being nice to her would probably annoy Banks by extension. "Sounds good to me. I think we'll put on some good matches," she decided to say. Pleasingly, she noticed Sasha roll her eyes.

"Come on then, let's see the newest Shield member," Nikki encouraged.

"Yeah," Bayley said excitedly. "Let's see if you look badass enough."

"I don't think there's any doubt about that," Lucy said dryly. Now centre stage, she complied with the requests and got changed into her new all black ring attire: boots, pants, plain T-shirt, leather gloves, and last but not least, body armour. When she was finished, she looked at herself in the large mirror at the end of the room. Shaking her head, she said, "I look so stupid right now."

"I think you look great, but you'd look better with your hair in a ponytail," Bayley suggested.

Moments later, Lucy had fixed her hair in a simple ponytail as suggested, and admired herself in the mirror again. "That's a bit better, I suppose. This outfit looks so dumb on me, though."

"I don't think it does," Nikki said, grinning. Then she put her fist out in the traditional Shield pose. "Go on, do the pose." Lucy obliged, touching her gloved fist to Nikki's. "What do you think, Bay?" Nikki asked.

"I love it," the champion decided, beaming. "I can't wait to see you with the guys for the first time. It's going to look awesome."

"It does suit you," Nia admitted, albeit reluctantly. "From a looks point of view, you're a good pick for The Shield."

"Thanks," Lucy said, surprised by the compliment. "You know what? I think I'll go and find the guys now and see what they think. Place your bets on how long it takes them to go to Vince and ask him to kick me into touch? Shit, they probably already tried it whenever he told them what the plan was. I'm going to be about as welcome in their locker room as a fart in an elevator."

"You should be used to that," Sasha mumbled.

Lucy touched a hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes. "Sorry, who said that? I can't see very well; there's too much light reflecting off Sasha's forehead over there."

Luckily, Nia was quick to grab hold of the furious Sasha when she leapt to her feet again. Her swift action almost certainly prevented a violent altercation.

"See you later, girls," Lucy said cheerily on her way to the door. She made her exit by breaking into song, with the chorus of an Elton John hit. "Are you ready, are you ready for love?"

"I fucking hate that bitch," Sasha growled as the door closed behind Lucy, and Nia let go of her.

"Don't worry," Dana said, "The Shield guys will hate her, too. Let's see her go in their locker room with an attitude."

At the back of the room, Emma laughed. "Hey, what if they implement that rule with them, where they make you travel with your partners. Can you imagine, Lucy and those guys in a car together?"

"Oh my," Bayley chuckled. "That should be a show on the Network. I'd watch it."

"I'd drive her out into the middle of nowhere and leave her there," Sasha said. "Imagine her standing in the middle of a desert with a car speeding off, with Seth and Dean waving at her out the back window."

Everyone in the room had a good laugh at that, then Dana said, "Personally, I'd settle for being a fly on the wall in that locker room about five minutes from now."

"I think we all would," Nia said, smiling at the thought.


	3. Chapter 3

Lucy Thorne made it halfway to The Shield's locker room before she saw a couple of familiar, friendly faces. Stephanie McMahon, her biggest supporter in WWE, was walking towards her, with her father by her side. Smiles broke out on both McMahon's faces when they took in the new ring attire she was wearing.

"Look at this!" Stephanie said, approving of the new look. "You look great, Lucy. We're really glad to have you back."

Lucy grinned as they shook hands, and gestured back towards the women's locker room with her other hand. "The girls were just saying the same thing."

"I'm sure they were," Vince said, completely missing the fact that Lucy's statement was about as far from the truth as it was possible to get. They shook hands, then Vince said, "Having you back with us on the road to Wrestlemania is going to be a big lift for everyone. I'm going to have the office send you some travel; we've got a tour of England coming up for the Raw roster in a couple of weeks. It's Tuesday through Saturday, so there's no live Raw over there, but having you all over the marketing will sell it out in no time."

"There's nothing like wrestling back home," Lucy smiled, genuinely this time. Getting cheered instead of booed would be a nice change, even if the boos didn't really bother her.

Stephanie was still admiring her new ring attire. While Lucy thought she looked stupid in it, her closest ally had a differing opinion. "I really can't believe how great you look in Shield gear," Stephanie enthused. "Some people had concerns about adding a woman to the team, but you fit the part perfectly. It's a shame we had to do that marketing for England before we had a shot of the new Shield to use, dad."

"Every night will be sold out anyway," Vince shrugged. "It will be good to see you out there with the guys for the first time tonight, though, Lucy."

"I've been looking forward to it for days. I think it's a great idea you came up with," Lucy lied. Once you had the McMahons on side, you kept them that way.

"There will be some negativity towards it," Stephanie said cautiously. "But then, there are fans who make a point of reacting negatively to everything we do these days. It's the new fad they've gotten into."

Lucy chuckled. "Tell me about it. I'm the one out there while they boo me for everything I do, regardless of what it is."

"As long as you're getting a reaction, we're happy," Vince assured her. "It'll soon turn around with this Shield run. They'll be cheering you before you know it."

Lucy seriously doubted that, but she wasn't going to say so. "What about Roman, Seth and Dean?" she asked instead. "Any reluctance from them about having me on the team?"

"A little," Vince admitted, understating it considerably. "I talked them around. Everyone can see this feud with The Authority is good business."

"I don't see why you added Nikki," Lucy said, eyeing Stephanie. "There was already a female authority figure in the stable I could have had a match with."

Stephanie laughed. "My boots have been hung up for a while. That match with Brie was a one time thing."

"Shame," Lucy said, meaning it. "I'd have loved to wrestle you."

"Never say never," Vince said with a mischievous grin. "One more thing, Lucy. I was thinking that it might be a good idea for you to start traveling with the rest of your team. It'll help you get to know each other, which in turn will lead to better chemistry between you on-screen. I trust that's not a problem?"

"No, sir," Lucy agreed easily, even though she was thinking the guys might not be so keen on the idea. "I'm actually on the way to see them now. Their locker room is just down here, right?"

"Yeah," Vince said.

"See you later then," Stephanie smiled, then the two bosses walked away.

As she continued her journey to The Shield's locker room, Lucy was able to hear Stephanie's first words to her father. "Best decision we ever made, signing her."

"Thanks, Steph," Lucy muttered under her breath, smirking to herself.

It only took her another minute to reach the locker room door with The Shield's logo on it. After giving her outfit another cursory inspection, she pounded loudly on the door with a gloved fist. She couldn't help wondering what kind of reaction she was going to get when the door opened, not that it would do much to change the way she acted in return. Hardly anything changed that, which was one of the reasons people like Sasha Banks hated her so much.

The door opened, and Lucy found Roman Reigns looking down at her. "Oh, hi," he greeted her, kindly enough, as he looked her up and down.

"What's up, big fella?" Lucy asked cheerily. "Is there some kind of secret knock I should know, or should I just walk in in future?"

"What's that?" Roman asked, confused.

"This is The Shield's locker room. I'm in The Shield now," Lucy pointed out.

"Right," Roman said slowly, narrowing his eyes a little. "Uh, come in. None of us have started getting changed yet anyway."

"This ain't your locker room," was Dean's opening gambit as Lucy walked in and Roman closed the door behind her. "You can keep on changing with the women."

"What's up, dude? Never seen a woman in her underwear before?" she asked him, grinning broadly.

"Yeah, I have," Dean snapped back. "Ones that look a lot nicer than you. You're not welcome in here, and you're not welcome on our team. We've only got you because we had no choice on it."

"He doesn't mean that," Seth said, trying to deal with the unpleasant atmosphere that had already descended on the locker room.

"Yes he does," Lucy replied, totally indifferent about the fact. "The problem he's got is, his opinion isn't something anyone gives a fuck about, including me. So, Mr Rollins, how do I look?" She stretched her arms out wide so he could check out her attire.

"Like a female member of The Shield," Seth had to admit, choosing not to add that he thought she looked hot as hell, too. It was a shame her personality was such a turn-off, because she sure was something to look at. He had always preferred dark haired women, and ones with a somewhat muscular appearance. Lucy fitted both of those criteria just fine.

Lucy turned around to face Roman for his opinion. "Roman?"

"Weirdly, it kind of suits you," Reigns had to admit. "It'll take some getting used to, but you do have the look for it."

"If only you could wrestle, this might not have been a bad idea," Dean chipped in.

"And I thought The Shield were a family," Lucy said, mocking him by pretending his comment hurt her feelings.

"We are, and you ain't a part of it," Dean told her, matter of fact. "Out there in the arena you might be in The Shield; in here, you're definitely not."

"What about when we're traveling together?" Lucy asked, deciding it was the perfect time to drop that one in to needle him further.

"Traveling together?" Roman asked before Dean could.

"That's right. I just saw Vince and Steph in the hallway. He said he expects us to travel together like the other teams do," Lucy said. "You know, bonding and shit." On reflection, she'd just decided that traveling with the guys could be a lot of fun, especially if Dean was going to keep on reacting to everything she said like he had for the past couple of minutes. It could turn out to be like having a second Sasha Banks to toy with.

"Okay, that's fine," Roman decided for the group. "But there's something I'm going to say right off the bat, considering how things have just gone since you walked in here. There is never any drama and bullshit in this locker room, and that's not going to change now you're part of the team. I know you like to go around getting a rise out of people, and every once in a while that's fine. However, I'm not going to have members of this team needling each other all the time and getting at each other's throats. Is that in any way unclear?"

Lucy snapped off a stiff salute, not taking him seriously. "No sergeant. Best behavior at all times from now on, sir." With that, she walked over to the bench where Dean was sitting and sat next to him, stretching her legs out and crossing her feet in a relaxed pose.

Roman and Seth resumed the conversation they had been having before Lucy knocked on the door, talking about how Roman's daughter was doing in school. Meanwhile, Dean just sat there beside Lucy, obviously still stewing about her presence in their locker room. After a couple of minutes, he reached breaking point.

"You're really getting on my nerves, Thorne," he growled at her.

"I'm just sitting here!" she protested, trying her best not to laugh.

"It's the way you're doing it, looking all smug," Dean snapped. "Can't you just get out?"

"I knew this was going to happen," Roman said, to himself as much as anyone else. "Seth, Lucy, leave us for a while, will you? And bear in mind, Lucy, that I will go to Vince and say tell him this isn't going to work because of your attitude if you come in here like this again. We've all worked too hard to make The Shield what it is to let you come in and tear it apart. That's not going to happen."

While Lucy suspected that Vince would come down on her side in that situation, she didn't want to push her luck too far. McMahon wasn't an idiot; he was just bent around his daughter's little finger, as a lot of fathers were. If Roman did go to him and he thought she was causing a lot of drama for The Shield, she just might lose her favoured status. She didn't want that to happen. Besides, she did have to work and travel with these people. All three of them hating her guts wouldn't make life a pleasurable experience. Drawing reactions was one thing, pushing Dean over the edge was another.

"Alright, I hear you," she told all three men, a bit more seriously this time. "I was just trying to have a bit of fun. Dean, I'm sorry I pissed you off, man." Despite her efforts, the apology sounded half-assed at best.

"No you're not," Dean said. "You're sorry Roman called you out on it and threatened to have McMahon kick you off the team before you get started. You don't want your sugar daddy getting pissed at you."

"Whatever," Lucy said irritably as she got up and marched towards the door. "I apologised and still you want to give me grief. How about I go and ask Vince to take me off the team myself, and say that you've all made it perfectly clear I'm not welcome?"

"No one's going to McMahon," Seth said sternly, causing everyone to turn to him. "I've already had it with this whole thing. Lucy, I'm going to explain something to you. Like Roman already said, we never have an atmosphere like this in our locker room. We're family in here. I spend infinitely more time with these guys than I do my own flesh and blood, and if you're going to be a part of this team, you will as well. Having a team around you as close as ours is something to cherish, to enjoy, and to be proud to be a part of. It's not something to treat like it's a joke. I'm not going to stand for it, in fact none of us are. You need to get on-board with that, or it really isn't going to work."

"He's right," Roman said before Lucy could reply, causing her to turn around to face him. "I'm going to be honest with you and say that all three of us had reservations about a woman joining The Shield. We're not sure that it's the right idea from a creative perspective, but Vince was insistent, so we're going with it. Drop the stupid attitude and we'll make you welcome, and we'll see how successful we can make this thing. I'm not saying you can't join in being sarcastic with us, pulling pranks, all the rest of it. We all do that to each other. There's a big difference between that and coming in here trying to rile us up at the first chance you get."

This was the first time in her career that Lucy had been asked to be a part of a tag team of any kind. For that reason, she had underestimated how seriously the guys took their off-screen friendship. It was clear now that she stepped a long way over the line in the sand with the way she had immediately set about getting under Dean's skin. Backing down, or especially offering a serious apology, were not things that came easily to her, but she knew when she had to do it.

"Message received," Lucy said, voice empty of sarcasm this time. She turned to Dean. "I was just trying to have some fun, but I can see I went too far. You're not keen on me being on the team, I get that, and me getting under your skin isn't going to help. I do want to be on the team, so I'll pull my head in a bit, okay?"

"Okay," Dean agreed with a sigh. "And I'll try not to snap at you so easily. I'm not an easy guy to get to know."

Seth looked at Lucy and gestured towards the door with his head. "How about we go and get the coffees in?"

"Alright," Lucy agreed, although she didn't really want one. She figured it was a time where she should be following the lead for once.

After the two of them left the locker room, Dean sighed again. "Sorry, Rome. I shouldn't have let her get to me like that. That frustration has been building up inside me all week since we found out she was coming on the team, then when she came in here like that, I just couldn't keep it in anymore."

"Ah, relax," Roman said, walking over and clapping his brother on the shoulder. "She's just used to having the run of the women's locker room. She needed it to be made perfectly clear that it wasn't going to go like that in here, and I think she learned that lesson pretty quick. She looked a bit sheepish after what Seth said."

"Maybe so," Dean grimaced, "But I've known people like her before, as I'm sure you have. It's in their nature to mouth off all the time; they just can't help themselves. We both know full well what a nightmare she is in the women's locker room all the time."

"True," Roman admitted. "We've got to give her a chance, though. Remember, we told Vince we'd only agree to her being on the team while we work The Authority through Wrestlemania season. If she doesn't get her ass in line, we make sure she's sent on her way when we come to revisit it with him. Are you okay with that?"

Dean took a moment before nodding his agreement. "She's got until 'Mania."

* * *

"Do you really want to be a part of The Shield?" Seth had asked Lucy after they had walked out of the locker room. "Or do you think it's a stupid idea that you don't want to commit to?"

Lucy looked at him for a second, reaching the decision to give him an honest answer rather than a sarcastic one, as tempting as that still was. There was something about Seth that made her want him to like her. That was a remarkable thing in itself, as far as she was concerned, and she didn't really understand the reason behind it. The most likely explanation, she had to admit, was that Seth was the only guy on the roster she actually found attractive. The rest of the guys were either way too muscled up for her tastes, or ugly, or both.

"Honestly? I'm with you guys," she revealed. "I don't think a woman in The Shield is necessarily a good idea, even if it's me. Having said that, I am willing to make a go of it. Who knows, maybe the writers are onto something here that was just don't see as yet?"

With a single laugh, Seth said, "So you can be mature when you have to be."

"Only when I have to be," Lucy told him with a grin.

"I've got an idea," Seth said as they approached the catering area. "How about we sit down and have a coffee and get to know each other a bit better, then we can take drinks back to the guys when we're done?"

"Sounds like my idea of a good time," Lucy said, regretting the sarcasm as soon as it left her lips. That was another first.


	4. Chapter 4

"Thank you," Lucy said when Seth returned to their table with two cups of coffee and handed one to her.

"You're welcome," Seth said, taking a seat opposite her. After taking a sip of his drink, he asked, "So, reservations about creative aside, are you looking forward to your debut in The Shield?"

"I actually have no idea yet what I'm supposed to do tonight," Lucy admitted. "Literally all I did before coming to see you guys was get changed to try out this new gear. Speaking of, let me take these stupid gloves off. I don't need them until later." As she removed her gloves and set them on the table, she asked, "What's the deal tonight then?"

"We hit the ring, making our entrances through the crowd from the three different corners as usual. We cut a promo about how we were each eliminated by members of The Authority at the Rumble last night, going on to mention that the only reason Roman got thrown out was that Nikki got on the apron and gave him a low blow when his back was turned. That will be given as the reason we decided enough is enough, and have recruited a new member of The Shield to even up the numbers against The Authority. That's when our music will hit again and you'll walk out through the entrance. You'll get in the ring and we'll do the pose with our fists while the commentators hype up how Nikki Bella didn't know what she was getting herself into when she involved herself in the Rumble match."

"Sounds good," Lucy said. "Other than the fact the crowd will lose their shit when they see it's me, of course. If they hated me before, they're going to despise me for joining their favourite team. They'll look at it like I'm ruining The Shield."

Seth raised an eyebrow, looking at her over the top of his coffee cup. "I thought the crowd reactions didn't bother you?"

"They don't," Lucy replied easily. "I'm just saying that we're supposed to be a face team, but there's no way I'm going to get a face reaction. If you guys expect me to get cheered, which I know is what Vince thinks will happen, you've got another thing coming. It's more likely I'll get heat on you than anything else."

"Who knows, maybe you'll win them over with this run," Seth said kindly.

Lucy took a sip of coffee. "I think it's beyond that at this point. Giving me a hard time for everything I do is one of the things the fans are most determined about. It is what it is, there's nothing I can do about it."

Seth had to admire how easily she was able to deal with the abuse she got, which sometimes went far beyond just booing. And that was in the arena. He dreaded to think what some of the comments she got on social media must be like. That was one of the worst parts about working as a heel in this day and age, and it was even worse for Lucy because she was supposed to be a face character. Why exactly McMahon was so persistent on that front, Seth had no idea. If they turned Lucy heel, she would certainly have no trouble generating the heat required for the role; she already had it.

A slightly awkward silence had settled between them while he had been thinking about Lucy's situation. It was the kind of silence that happened between two people who found themselves kind of forced into talking to each other, when neither of them would probably have chosen to do so in other circumstances. Seth took it upon himself to say something to make conversation to the woman he knew very little about, who was now going to be one of his partners. "Tell me a bit about yourself, Lucy. Did you always want to be a wrestler when you were younger?"

"My friends call me LT. I guess I should extend that to teammates as well," Lucy decided, before continuing with a frank admission. "No, I didn't want to become a wrestler at all. I never knew for sure what I wanted to do. My mom and dad are both doctors. They wanted my sister and I to follow in their footsteps. My sister did; she's a junior doctor now, but I had no interest in medicine at all. Sports were the only thing I put any real effort into in school."

"What sports were you good at?" Seth asked.

"I was good at most of them," Lucy said, without bragging about it. "Swimming and cricket were the two I was best at, though. I've always loved the water for some reason. Anyway, I was seriously considering trying to make a career out of cricket at one point after I left school. It's not easy though as the women's game has hardly any attention, sadly."

"I can't say I know anything about cricket," Seth admitted.

"You wouldn't, not over here. Baseball is the closest thing you have, but they're really not that similar at all. I was a very good bowler. Couldn't bat to save my life, but that's not always a huge problem."

Seth took a drink from his cup, almost finishing his coffee. "Why didn't it work out?"

"I don't really know, to be honest," Lucy said thoughtfully. "A friend of mine got involved in boxing and I started going along with her. It turned out I was good at it. One thing lead to another and I started playing cricket less, in favour of boxing. A promoter took me on and I did a few fights. I won them all, and things started escalating pretty fast from there. I was approached to start doing some MMA fights, which I agreed to, and again I won them all. My name must have started to spread around, because the next thing I knew UFC had some people come over to scout me. Then I got what you might call the big break. I agreed to do a fight at some charity event on this side of the pond; I think it was a cancer charity or something. They were donating a percentage of the money raised from ticket sales, that kind of thing. I was hoping UFC would have some people there again to check me out. For whatever reason, Stephanie McMahon was there to give a speech earlier in the night. She stayed and watched my fight, and, well..."

"She fell in love at first sight?" Seth suggested as an end to the sentence, chuckling. Stephanie's woman crush on Lucy was no secret to anyone on the roster.

"You could say that," Lucy said, managing a hint of a grin of her own. "There was interest from UFC, but WWE were keen to steal me from under their noses and made me a much better offer, so I took it."

"You said both of your parents are doctors. They can't have been too pleased about you getting involved in violent sports like boxing or MMA?"

Lucy downed her drink and set the empty cup on the table. "They weren't. But you know me, I don't give a fuck about other people's opinions, not even my parents. I told them I was going to pursue the things I wanted to do, with or without their support, but with it would be better for all of us. They came around to my way of thinking and helped me out with the money I needed when I needed it. They actually liked it when I told them I was going to sign for WWE instead of UFC, thinking that it was better for me to make a living pretending to get beat up than actually getting beat up. Of course, you and I know that this business hurts a lot, but it put their minds at rest."

Seth grinned. "Parents glad about someone choosing wrestling as a career? That's a new one, especially among the women."

"Your parents didn't approve?" Lucy asked.

"At the beginning, no," Seth said. "They didn't see how wrestling in gymnasiums in front of twenty people was ever going to lead to anything that was worth the risk of getting hurt. I guess they've been proven wrong at this point."

"I guess they have," Lucy said, leaning back in her chair.

Seth had hoped she would ask more questions about him and his background, but the silence told him that she had no real interest in getting to know him. He felt slightly offended after how much interest he had shown in her story. Thinking about it, he didn't know why he was surprised. Everyone had heard the stories from the women's locker room about how self-centred Lucy was most of the time. He guessed she had probably inherited her negative traits from her parents, with both of them being doctors. After all, doctors were renowned for being narcissistic and over-confident in their own abilities. Deciding that he was done with the conversation, Seth finished his coffee and stood up, cup in hand. "Let's grab some drinks for the guys and head back," he suggested.

"Sure," Lucy said. Picking her gloves up as she stood, she walked around to his side of the table.

"You forgot your cup," Seth pointed out, meaning that she should return it to assigned area for dirty items to help the catering staff out.

"I don't get paid to clean the place up," she told him, as if the suggestion was stupid somehow. "Start paying me the catering staff's wages, I'll start cleaning up for them."

Seth raised his eyebrows but decided to say nothing, seeing no value in advising her that she could benefit from being taught some manners. Such a winning personality, he thought, only just managing not to shake his head.

"I know what no one's probably thought about," Lucy said a couple of minutes later as they were walking back to The Shield's locker room, with Seth carrying two cops of coffee.

"What's that?" Seth asked tolerantly.

"You guys have that triple powerbomb thing you do. That's The Shield's signature move. What am I supposed to do when you do that, stand there like a spare part?"

"Well," Seth considered. "There's not exactly anything in that move for a fourth person to do. And besides, you know the rules regarding men and women hitting moves on each other. It's strictly not allowed."

"Fucking stupid," Lucy mumbled.

Frankly, Seth had to agree with her on that point, but by now he was approaching the end of his rope as far as her attitude was concerned. It was quickly becoming apparent that Lucy Thorne was bearable only in short doses. Despite his reluctance, an idea had come to mind. "In the right circumstances, we could do the same triple powerbomb move with you delivering it to a woman. All Dean and I do is load the recipient up for Roman. There's no reason we can't do that for you as well; we won't actually be doing a move on the woman in question, or hurting her in any way. You'll be doing that part by actually delivering the powerbomb."

"That makes sense," Lucy said with a rare smile. "It would make me look more like an actual part of the team, not just a stupid add-on."

"We'll run it by the guys when we get back to the locker room," Seth said. "As for tonight, we just need to make sure your introduction goes well."

"Walking down to the ring and posing with my fist held out and a mean expression on my face? I think I can manage that, Seth," Lucy said, returning to her customary sarcasm.

* * *

After the three regular members of The Shield had gone out to the ring and started their promo, Dean had called for footage to be shown of all three of their eliminations from the previous night's Royal Rumble match at the hands of The Authority. The footage concluded with Roman's elimination, which had been brought about mainly because of the low blow from Nikki Bella, drawing the loudest boos of the night so far from the crowd. When the shot returned to the ring, it was Roman's turn to speak.

"Last night was one of the most difficult in the long history of The Shield. After the Royal Rumble was over, we had a lot of soul searching to do. It's not often that a group of people get one over on The Shield, especially not to the extent that The Authority did last night. We sat in our hotel room and reflected on what had happened, and we came to a realisation. The truth is, ever since we debuted in the WWE, we have used the numbers game to our advantage as often as possible. That tactic, our tactic, was used against us last night. There were four Authority members out there in that arena, and only three of us. They beat us at our own game."

"That's right," Seth said, taking his turn to speak. "As you all saw just now, the reason Roman was eliminated from the Royal Rumble match was interference by Nikki Bella. Sure, Finn Balor threw him out, but that would never happened if it wasn't for Nikki. So, we were left with the problem of how to even out the numbers game, and how to get some payback on Nikki Bella for what she did. Obviously neither Dean, Roman or myself would ever hit a woman, so what could we do to get even with Nikki?"

"Then it hit us," Dean said. "The perfect solution was also the obvious solution. We decided that if The Shield are going to completely take out The Authority - and that's exactly what we are going to do - we needed to do something we'd never contemplated doing before. We needed to bring in a fourth member of The Shield."

There was a real air of anticipation in the arena now as the fans took in that surprising announcement. Partly to further build up the anticipation, and partly to give the commentators time to speculate on exactly what Dean meant, there was a short pause before The Shield's music hit again. When the music started, a new Shield-themed video package for Lucy Thorne played along with it. The initial reaction when the fans realised who the new Shield member was sounded like something between a cry of shock and a cheer at the return of a big name. Then, a few seconds later, as she walked out onto the stage in her Shield attire, everyone seemed to remember that they hated Lucy Thorne and started booing furiously, exactly as she had expected.

On her walk down the ramp, Lucy imitated the way the three men in the ring always sauntered around the place. She had to act like a member of the team now if this new idea was going to stand any chance of working. At Roman's suggestion, she had abandoned the ponytail, taking on-board his point that he and Seth had long hair and never wore it in ponytails, so she might fit in better if she didn't either. It worked for her, as she had always wrestled with her hair down in the past.

A negative reaction had come as no surprise at all to Lucy, but she noticed something new on her way to the ring. At least from what she could see in the first few rows, the women now appeared to be much more angry with her than the men. It made sense, she realised, considering how many of them were fangirls of The Shield. Adding a woman to the group was never likely to be a popular move with them, let alone when it was Lucy Thorne of all people. She wondered if Vince McMahon had even considered that as a factor in his decision. Probably not, she decided. He had expected her to be cheered; that alone showed how out of touch he was with his paying customers.

As she climbed into the ring, Lucy felt thankful that she didn't have any lines of her own to deliver to sell her arrival on the team. The commentators would be handling that job. If it had been left to her, it would have been hard to make herself heard over the booing.

Somehow, the intensity of the boos managed to increase when the three men gave the traditional Shield pose, inviting her to join in. Adding her clenched fist to the collection, she looked into the camera with a stern look on her face. All four of them stood there like that untilbthe cameraman backed away and the lights above the ring went out, signalling that the segment had gone off air.

"That went well," she heard Ambrose quip at her.

"They love me really," she fired right back.

"Yeah, about as much as we do," Dean said sarcastically as they climbed out of the ring.

"Glad to hear it," Lucy said happily. "Remember we're traveling together tonight."

"Can't wait," she heard Seth mutter. For some reason, while Dean's sarcasm simply amused her, Seth's made her feel something else; something less positive. Exactly what she felt, or why, she couldn't quite figure out. Deciding not to waste her time thinking about it, she followed her so-called new partners up the entrance ramp.


	5. Chapter 5

The other women were already in the process of changing when Lucy walked back into the locker room. Those who had been in action on Raw had competed in a tag team match earlier in the night.

"It's good to be back," Lucy proclaimed as she walked in.

"Didn't sound like anyone else agreed," Sasha said, not hiding her satisfaction at Lucy being booed out of the building on her combination of return from injury and debut with The Shield. Dana and Nia both laughed at Sasha's comment.

Being crapped on by a crowd and then mocked in the locker room, by Sasha Banks of all people, wasn't Lucy's ideal way of finishing off her first night back. However, she wasn't going to give her rival the satisfaction of being baited into losing her cool.

"At least I get a reaction," she said instead. "I'd rather that any day of the week than what you get most of the time, Banks. I've heard noisier libraries than arenas you wrestle in; probably because everyone goes for a piss when they hear your music."

"I'm surprised Roman, Seth and Dean let you make it out to the ring," Dana sniped. "There's no way they can be happy with you being on their team."

Lucy gave her a withering glare. "Put your Job Squad shirt on and shut your mouth."

With that, the conversation moved on, leaving Lucy to start getting changed. As she took of her leather gloves, she resisted the temptation to angrily throw them down on the bench. The truth of it was that she wasn't at all happy about how the night had gone, not that she would let on to her so-called colleagues. As if they would care anyway, she thought bitterly.

Another cause of her bitterness was the crowd. The fact they had booed her like crazy had not been any kind of surprise, but it was still tiresome. No matter what she did, they would never give her a break at this point. Booing her was just the in thing. It made no sense to her. It wasn't as if she didn't try hard in her matches or promos.

"It's not even my fault I get shit on," she told herself as she continued undressing. It was true; she was certain of it. Vince McMahon's booking was the reason she was booed. It had all started on NXT when Vince had managed to talk Hunter into booking her to be first to beat the then NXT Women's Champion Asuka. The NXT fans had already been growing tired of her push before then, and that victory had turned the annoyance into all-out rejection and hatred. Since then, the tide had been irreversible. If only Hunter had said no to McMahon that night, she thought angrily, now feeling like she hated everyone else in the world.

"Are you okay?" a gentle voice asked.

While the other women were chatting away to each other, Bayley had walked up to Lucy and gently placed a hand on her arm. Lucy realised he must have seen either anger or unhappiness on her face, despite the fact that she was trying to hide her emotions.

"I'm fine," Lucy insisted shrugging her arm away from Bayley's hand. "And don't touch me."

"Sorry," Bayley said timidly, before walking over to try and join in the other conversation.

Lucy watched on, feeling more and more annoyed by the second. As had been the case throughout her life, she didn't fit in with the people around her. It was something she was used to by now, and it rarely bothered her. Sometimes, though, it really got her down, as it was right now.

Taking her phone out of her locker, she saw that she only had one message. One. After her return from injury after five months, just one person had reached out. She knew it wouldn't be from her parents or sister; with the time difference to England, they would either be asleep or working a night shift. Such was life for doctors.

Opening the text message, Lucy saw that it was from Charlotte Flair. There was no particular love lost between the two, but even so, Charlotte had decided to reach out with some kind words.

_Keep your chin up, girl. You looked great out there tonight. See you soon._

Feeling touched, Lucy typed out a quick reply of her own.

_Thanks, Char. Shield is certainly something different. Hurry back. I miss you._

She paused for a moment, then shook her head. After deleting the final three words, she sent the message.

Barely another word was exchanged before Lucy was ready to leave. She picked up her things and walked out without saying goodbye to anyone.

* * *

"Brilliant," Dean complained when the three male Shield members walked back into their locker room after Lucy's introductory segment. "We're given a face run, then we get her on the team, now we're being booed. Only Vince could make a mess like this."

" _We_ didn't get booed," Seth pointed out. "They were booing Lucy, not The Shield. Not that that makes it much better. It still makes a mess of this Authority rivalry. What if they start cheering Nikki now? The crowd reactions are going to be all over the place."

"Hey, that's a good point," Dean said, passing bottles of water around and opening one for himself. "Why didn't they put Lucy on The Authority instead of Nikki? Talk about guaranteed heat."

"Because Vince still thinks Lucy's a face, for some reason," Roman reminded him.

"Must have gone deaf," Dean chuckled. "Sure didn't sound like any face reaction I ever heard."

"Well, now it's our job to try and help her get over," Roman said, his tone neutral.

"Why is it?" Dean complained.

"Because she's our partner now," Roman said patiently. "I know as well as you both do that the chances are high of this thing ending badly, with her attitude and all, but if it does? It's not going to be because of any of us three. We're going to do our best to include her in the group, inside and outside the ring. If it fails then, McMahon can look to his golden girl for the reasons. Anyone got a problem with that?"

Seth downed half of his bottle of water, then said, "No, I agree. I'm not going to have Shield on the shit list if she refuses to get on-board with being a part of the team. Honestly, I was all for giving her a chance at a fresh start until that chat we had over coffee earlier. I've genuinely never talked to anyone that self-centred before in my life."

"What actually happened?" Dean asked, keen to hear some more dirt on the new partner he most definitely didn't like.

"I sat there asking her all kinds of questions about her family, her interests, how she got to where she is now. We were talking away just fine and I was thinking, 'You know, Lucy's not as bad as people make out.' Then the conversation moved on to me, and she checked the hell out right away. She didn't ask me a single question about myself. Not one!" Seth exclaimed, getting irritated again just by talking about it.

Dean shook his head. "That's what I'm talking about. Lucy Thorne's no team player. She couldn't care less about anyone but herself. I'm not interested in having someone like that for a partner. McMahon's fucked us over on this one."

"Subject change," Roman ordered, determined to stop the bitching about their new partner, even though she had undoubtedly brought it on herself. He could already see that this was going to be his biggest challenge as the defacto leader of the group.

By the time they finished changing, the atmosphere had lightened considerably, with all three men exchanging their usual jokes and banter.

"All set?" Roman asked, standing by the door with his case.

"Yeah," Dean replied.

"Let's go," Seth said, following Dean to the door. "I guess we need to go find the lovely Lucy?"

"Yep," Roman said simply as he lead them out into the hallway.

"Can we stop by the janitors closet?" Dean requested. "I want to find some duct tape. That way, if she starts mouthing off in the car, I can throw her in the trunk."

All three men laughed at that image, then set off for the women's locker room.

* * *

Outside in the corridor, Lucy had a decision to make. Vince wanted her to travel with her new partners - that term felt like a joke in itself - but she really didn't feel in the mood for company. All she wanted was to get to the hotel and get some sleep, knowing that she would feel fine again in the morning. Whenever she felt down like this, it never lasted long. So, should she go to the Shield locker room or risk getting on the bus that WWE always organised to get people back to the hotel?

"Ready to leave?" a familiar voice asked, making that particular decision for her.

Turning, she saw not only Roman walking towards her, but the other Shield members as well, pulling their cases along behind them.

"I'm ready," she replied wearily, falling in step beside Roman when he reached her.

Aside from their footsteps and the sounds of the wheels of their cases on the floor, they were enveloped in an awkward silence as they walked.

After a minute, Lucy heard Dean mumble to Seth, "Janitor's closet; there it is."

Seth chuckled in response. Lucy almost gave in to temptation and asked what was funny, but she managed to resist.

"So, how was your first night back?" Roman asked her, simply to make conversation.

"Crap," she replied simply.

"Most people would be delighted to be back after five months out," Dean chirped up from behind her as they approached the building's exit.

It was enough to push Lucy's mood over the edge. "Would they?" she snapped. "What exactly would they be happy about? Would it be sharing a locker room with a bunch of people they don't like? Or maybe it would be being forced to join a team they don't want to be on? Or, it might even be getting booed out of the arena for no reason? Tell me, Dean, because I'm dying to get your precious insight on it."

Instead, Seth took up the challenge as they entered the parking garage. "Actually, what they'd be happy about is that they were back doing the job they love; the job they've dreamed of doing all their lives; the job the bust their asses night after night to get better at because they take immense pride in it. They would be happy to get back into the locker room because they would know that if you treat people right in this business, you have yourself a second family here. And they would be glad to be a part of The Shield because we're the best thing going in WWE right now. Does that answer your questions?" Despite the look Roman was giving him, Seth had really snapped the last sentence at Lucy.

"Whatever," she replied sulkily.

The drive to the hotel took fifteen minutes. Dean did the driving, with Roman beside him in the front. Seth sat in the back next to Lucy, who didn't say a word to anyone throughout the journey.

By the time they parked in the hotel's lot, Seth felt a bit guilty about how he had gone off on Lucy. Yes, she had brought it on herself with her stupid attitude, but she had genuinely looked miserable rather than sulky in the car. It had made him try and see things from her point of view.

Did she act confrontational with everyone because she already assumed they didn't like her? As far as he knew, she didn't have any friends in the locker room. That in itself was remarkable. Pretty much everyone had at least one person they were close to. Seth couldn't imagine how this job could be anything other than a trial without close friends around you. Sure, the wrestling was great, but there was so much traveling and time in hotels that doing it alone would be an awful way to live.

Then it hit him: Maybe Lucy was just too socially awkward to make friends. Was being confrontational what she fell back on when she didn't know what else to do? It was an odd suggestion, but he realised it might be true. It would also explain why she hadn't engaged with him about his background or interests over their coffee earlier in the night. Or she could just be self-centred and ignorant, he conceded. Either way, he decided to be a nice guy and cut her a break.

As they walked through the lobby, he fell in step beside Lucy. "I'm sorry about before," he said quietly, not wanting Roman or Dean to hear him over their own conversation. "All three of us want to make you welcome on the team. We're going to be ordering some room service food in my room and having a couple of drinks. Why don't you join us? It would a good first step towards becoming a part of the group. I'm in room four one eight."

Lucy looked at him for a moment, considering his words. "Four one eight," she repeated eventually, making sure not to commit to anything with her tone. Spending the night eating with Dean Ambrose didn't seem like much of a prospect at that moment, with the current downer she was on.

They parted way in the elevator and Lucy took a shower as soon as she was settled back into her room. The hot water removed some of the tension from her and she felt a bit better by the time she emerged from the bathroom.

Realising she was hungry and that a drink or two might be just the thing she needed, she decided to take Seth up on his offer. It had been nice of him to invite her, and maybe he was right about it being a first step towards becoming a part of The Shield.

As quickly as she could, she dried her hair with a hair dryer, got changed into a clean T-shirt and a pair of jeans, then spent a couple of minutes making herself look presentable. "Not too bad," she told the reflection in the mirror when she was done.

A couple of minutes later she was down on the fourth floor, following the door numbers to locate Seth's room. She soon realised it was just around the corner up ahead. As she rounded the corner and approached the correct door, she heard laughter coming from inside, from all three men. It stopped her in her tracks, just short of knocking on the door.

She hesitated for a moment, before sighing and shaking her head in resignation. What's the point?" she asked herself with a heavy sigh. "I'm never going to fit in with these people. Hell, it's probably me they're laughing at."

Mind made up, she turned and walked back around the corner.

"We probably should have invited Lucy," Roman said to his friends some time later, while they were eating their room service meals. "I really should have thought about it."

"I did think about it," Seth told him. "I told her what we were doing tonight, invited her along and told her it would be a good first step towards becoming a part of the group. I don't know why I bothered; she obviously doesn't give a damn. Leave her to it, I say. I've made an effort twice tonight and gotten nothing back from her. I'm done."

"Don't blame you," Dean said through a mouthful of food.

Roman decided to leave it at that. "Who wants another beer?"


	6. Chapter 6

"You really are a twat sometimes, you know that?" Lucy said angrily. The reflection in the mirror looked like it agreed. "Why didn't you go into their room?" she asked, frustrated by her own stupidity.

During her morning shower she had found herself thinking back to the previous night, realising that there were several things she regretted. First there had been Bayley coming up to her, having seen that she was upset, only to be shrugged off and snapped at. The poor girl hadn't deserved that.

Then there had been Charlotte's text message; the only one she had gotten in regard to her return to the ring. Lucy had originally typed out in her reply that she missed Charlotte, but had then deleted it before hitting send. Why? She didn't even have an answer to that question. It would have been a nice thing to say, and now the chance was gone.

And worst of all there had been Seth's invite to have a few drinks and some food with the guys. She had gone to his room, but had turned away at the last moment after hearing the three men laughing in the room. Why the hell had she assumed they were laughing at her, when there was absolutely nothing to suggest that was the case? Again, she had no answer, other than she did stupid things when she felt down; stupid things that often made her life more difficult in the long run.

Sighing, she carried on fixing her hair in preparation to head down to the restaurant for breakfast. A moment later, her phone started ringing in her pocket. Taking it out, she saw that her sister was calling.

"Hey, Lisa," she answered, happy to have the chance to talk to someone friendly.

"Hi, Lucy," Lisa said happily. "How are you?"

"Not too bad," Lucy hedged, sitting down on the side of the bed. "You?"

"I'm alright. I had to call you, after I just watched your big return. You're a part of The Shield now? Holy shit, you kept that one quiet!" Lisa exclaimed.

"Yeah, well, I wasn't sure it was a good thing," Lucy said, devoid of any enthusiasm. "And since the crowd shit all over it, and the guys hate me, I guess I was right not to get excited."

"What do you mean the guys hate you?" Lisa asked, concerned.

"There aren't many ways to mean that sentence, Li," Lucy said, sarcasm creeping in, as it often did.

"I meant why do you think they hate you?" Lisa asked, ignoring the sarcasm.

"I don't _think_ they hate me, they do hate me. They didn't think adding a woman to the team was a good idea, which is fair enough, because it wasn't. And Dean and I ended up at each other's throats from minute one. I have to admit I was trying to needle him. Safe to say which side of that one Seth and Roman took."

"Oh, Lucy," Lisa sighed. "You just can't help yourself being confrontational, can you?"

"What makes you think I was being confrontational?" Lucy snapped defensively. "I said I was needling Dean a bit, that doesn't mean I was being confrontational."

She could sense the raised eyebrow on the other end of the line when her sister replied. "You're telling me you weren't?"

"Alright, so I wound Dean up a bit," Lucy admitted. "Anyway, that wasn't the worst part of the night. I got on a real downer after the show; I was snapping at people in the locker room and then I screwed up when I got back to the hotel."

"Screwed up how?" Lisa asked, concern quickly returning.

"Seth invited me to his room to have something to eat with the guys. I went down there, but when I was about to knock on the door I heard them laughing in there. I convinced myself they were laughing at me, so I turned around and went back to my room."

"So now the guys will think you just blanked the invite," Lisa realised sympathetically. "Oh, Luce, I'm sure they weren't laughing at you. You really need to sit down and have a talk with them. I don't have to do your job to realise you need to be friendly with your partners. Right now, they probably don't even want to work with you. You're going to have to fix that."

"Great," Lucy said sullenly. "Can't wait to have that conversation."

There was a pause for a second at the other end of the line, then Lisa said, "Sorry, I've got a call coming in from the hospital. I've got to go. Talk to the guys, Lucy. I'll speak to you soon."

"Okay, bye," Lucy said. She knew that her sister was right, but she still felt frustrated by what she was going to have to do. It had been a mistake to get all paranoid about the laughter and choose to ignore Seth's invite. However, apologising and admitting mistakes to others went totally against her nature. It was easier to blame other people, but that wasn't an option this time. This mess with her new partners was all of her own making, even she knew that.

A few minutes later, she made her way down to the restaurant. When she walked in, she saw Roman, Seth and Dean sitting at a table, already eating, chatting away like the old friends they were. Reaching the decision that she had to approach them, Lucy then had to problem of how to address the fact that she hadn't eaten with them the previous night. Ultimately, the answer was obvious: lie. That, at least, was something she was quite good at.

After loading a tray with a cup of coffee and a plate of toast and eggs, Lucy walked over to the table where her teammates were sitting. "Can I join you?" she asked, trying her best to sound friendly.

"Sure," Roman answered for the group.

As she sat down in the one empty seat, next to Dean of all people, Lucy decided to go for it right away. Looking at Seth, she said, "Sorry I didn't come down last night. I intended to, but I sat down on the bed to have a minute, then the next thing I knew it was four in the morning. I must have fallen asleep straight away."

"You missed a good night," Seth said pleasantly, feeling a bit better now he had an explanation other than sheer ignorance for her no-show.

"Maybe next time?" Lucy suggested.

"If you're paying," Dean said, shoveling bacon into his mouth with his fork.

Lucy decided that while she was on a roll with swallowing her pride, she might as well make a gesture to show her new partners that she actually did want to be included in the group. If paying for some room service food and a few beers was the price of admission, it would probably be for the best to pay it.

"Fine," she conceded. "Next time we have a night in at a hotel, it'll be in my room, on me."

Her change in attitude was immediately rewarded, even if only slightly so. Dean glanced at her and managed a hint of a grin. "Don't word it like that if Renee asks you about it."

"You wish, Dean," she quipped back. This time it was good-natured rather than aggressive. Real progress, she decided.

Lucy spent the next ten minutes eating her breakfast and hardly participating in the chatter, but she didn't feel like she was being excluded; she was just enjoying her food.

The three men had been halfway through their meals before Lucy started, which was why they had all finished when Seth's phone rang.

"Excuse me," he said politely to Lucy after taking the phone out of his pocket, mindful of the fact that it wasn't the greatest display of manners to sit there on a phone call while someone was eating. Having said that, he doubted the person who was calling would appreciate having to wait for a call back.

"Hi, Hunter," Seth greeted the caller.

As she ate, Lucy listened to his side of the conversation.

"Tomorrow, yeah, I know… Yeah… Two of us, yeah, I remember… That's not a bad idea… Good point… Yeah, it makes sense… Okay, confirm that then… No, I'll speak to her. It'll be fine… Okay, see you."

Sensing that she was the 'her' in question, Lucy raised a quizzical eyebrow over the top of her coffee cup after Seth ended the call.

"That was Hunter," Seth told her unnecessarily. "He was calling to remind me that there's a meet and greet tomorrow for two Shield members at a Toys R Us. His suggestion was for you and I to do it, since you're obviously new to the team. It does make sense to have you included in as much Shield-related stuff as possible to get the fans used to the idea."

"I hate meet and greets," Lucy complained. "At least it's good money, I suppose. Toys R Us are what, fifteen grand for two hours?"

"Yep," Roman agreed, then added a firm edge to his voice. "And the money from all Shield appearances is split equally four ways, so you'll owe Dean and I a cut of that money when you get it."

Lucy just about managed to hold herself in check before she blew up over that news. Paying other people a cut of the money she made for appearances wasn't something she felt at all inclined to agree to, but just in time, she realised that this wasn't a WWE rule that Roman was talking about, it was something the Shield guys had agreed between themselves. "Then I'd better get a cut of everyone else's appearance money in return," she huffed.

"Of course you will," Roman said patiently. "That's how we keep it fair and make sure there's no disagreements between us about money, since they usually only book us two at a time for these things."

A realisation seemed to hit Dean at that moment. "Hey, is she getting a cut of our merch money now?" he demanded of the group as a whole.

"Of course she is, and she's going to come out on the short end of that arrangement," Roman pointed out, obviously trying to avoid an argument breaking out. "Think about it: they're not going to be making Lucy Thorne merch anymore; they'll just be pushing the female Shield stuff that they already sell. Obviously they'll start making new shirts with all four of our faces on and stuff like that, but Lucy's still going to end up out of pocket without her own stuff selling anything like as much."

Lucy felt her blood coming close to boiling point as she realised that Roman was right. It was the first time she had put any thought into the financial consequences of joining The Shield, Vince McMahon having conveniently neglected to mention it during his sales pitch of the idea. So, she summed up for herself, she was now on a team that she didn't really want to be on, with people she didn't know, and losing money for the privilege. Perfect.

"You hadn't thought about that, had you?" Seth asked, sounding slightly sympathetic.

"No I fucking hadn't," Lucy grumbled. "Vince played me big time on this thing, the old bastard."

To her surprise, Dean roared with laughter beside her. "That's brilliant coming from you," he said, smiling broadly.

Congratulating herself on her restraint, Lucy ignored him and looked at Seth. "So, it's me and you tomorrow then?"

"Yeah, and just in case you're not aware, all Shield meet and greets are done in full ring gear. It's a pain, but it's been a thing for a while now. They think the fans enjoy it more if they get pictures with us in our gear or something, I don't know," Seth shrugged.

At this point, Lucy just had to laugh. It was either that or totally lose her cool. "Any more bad news, guys, while we're at it?" she asked, spreading her arms out wide. "Come on, hit me with it. The more the better."

"I've got some," Dean said nonchalantly, rummaging around in his jeans pocket. He produced a car key attached to a plastic fob and dropping it on the table next to Lucy. "When you're done eating we're out of here, and you're doing the driving."

As she focused on her breakfast for a moment, Lucy found herself thinking that she might need to change the way she acted with these guys. Adopting an attitude only seemed to dig her into a deeper hole every time she tried it. What surprised her the most was that in a way she actually enjoyed how the guys came back at her in her in kind rather than getting angry as people like Sasha Banks did.

"I talked myself into that one, didn't I?" she said with a grin after swallowing her mouthful of food.

"You sure did. That's how it works with us," Seth grinned back at her. The conversation over breakfast had given him the idea that maybe working with Lucy wouldn't be the abject disaster that he had first feared after all. She seemed to have resolved herself to conduct herself with a bit less of a bad attitude than she had the day before, and it had made a big difference. Even Dean seemed to be tolerating her presence without looking like he wanted to strangle her at any given moment. Then, to his great surprise, Lucy and Dean actually started having a conversation. Turning to glance at Roman, Seth got a slight nod of reassurance, which he took as Roman's way of saying, "I think it's going to be okay after all."

Half an hour later, they were checked out of the hotel and on the way to the next town for that night's house show, with Lucy taking up the driving duties that she had landed herself with. Sitting in the back, Seth found himself considering the problem of the fans incessantly booing her; not a good thing now that she was on their team during a face run. He tried to set his mind to work on things that she might do to turn public opinion around and get more of the fans on her side. It was an interesting problem to consider. Even more interesting would be seeing how she reacted to any suggestions he might come up with. Seeing her in action at the meet and greet the next day would also be an insightful experience. He had the feeling that getting to know the real Lucy Thorne wasn't going to be easy, but he had always liked a challenge.


	7. Chapter 7

Seth had made sure to get down to the hotel's lobby several minutes before the time he had been given to meet the driver who would take him and Lucy to their meet and greet event at the local Toys R Us store. Locating the driver, a slightly overweight but pleasant looking guy dressed in a black suit, hadn't been difficult. The driver had turned out to be a friendly enough guy and Seth had struck up a conversation with him while they waited for Lucy to arrive. As the time ticked on, Seth had started to wonder if she was going to be late, which would have been incredibly unprofessional, but no, she had arrived a couple of minutes before the designated time.

"Are we ready then?" she asked as she approached the two men. She didn't bother giving Seth a more formal greeting because all four Shield members had already eaten breakfast together that morning.

"We are," Seth nodded, then turned to the driver. "Lead the way, John."

"You have no idea how stupid I feel walking around the hotel wearing this ring attire," Lucy complained as they walked across the lobby.

Seth chuckled. "You were wearing it in front of twelve thousand people in the arena on Raw and about eight thousand at the house show last night. Now you're bothered about someone seeing you wearing it in an elevator?"

"It's different when you're wrestling compared to walking around a hotel. You know exactly what I mean," Lucy said testily.

"Alright, don't start getting moody," Seth said, in no mood of his own for more Lucy Thorne attitude when they were on their way to spend two hours meeting fans. There was a moment of silence between them while they climbed into the SUV with blacked out windows.

"I just don't like meet and greets," Lucy griped as the driver pulled away.

Seth grimaced and shook his head, deciding that this was his first chance to pass on some advice. "Lucy, this is probably one of the reasons you're struggling to get over with the fans. Yeah, it's not the ideal thing either of us would want to spend two hours of our morning doing, but you've got to look at it from the point of view of the fans. They're the ones we're doing this for. The thirty seconds they spend with us today could be memories that last them for years to come. They could have been literally dreaming about meeting Lucy Thorne or Seth Rollins for months, if not years, and today they're going to get to do it. Imagine you're someone who considers themselves to be Lucy Thorne's biggest fan, yet when you finally get to meet her, she seems like she doesn't want to be there and doesn't give a damn about you. How would you feel?"

"Okay, point made," Lucy sighed. "I mean, I wasn't going to act miserable once we got there, anyway."

"Good," Seth said simply, leaving a silence that Lucy somehow felt obliged to fill.

"At least I got issued these things as part of my outfit," she said, fiddling with her gloves which she had dropped into her lap after getting into the SUV. "It'll save me shaking people's sweaty hands. That's the absolute worst."

"I can agree with you on that," Seth admitted, pulling his own gloves out of a pocket on his body armour. "I came prepared too," he grinned. "I can understand why people get nervous about meeting us and their hands sweat, but that doesn't make it any less unpleasant."

"Any other words of advice then, master of all things fan interaction?" Lucy asked, with humour as well as sarcasm. "You might as well get your shots in now; we've got some time to kill till we get there."

"If that's what you want," Seth said, rising to the challenge. There was something else he had come up with during the car journey the previous day. "Why do you hardly ever use your social media? For example, it looks like you only tweet something when one of the writers asks you to."

Lucy raised an eyebrow. "You've been snooping on my Twitter?"

"Yes, I'm a master level stalker," Seth said dryly. "You didn't answer the question."

"No, I don't use my Twitter unless I have to. So what?" Lucy demanded, starting to bristle, which in turn grated on Seth's nerves.

Thinking that talking with this woman was never easy, or particularly pleasant, he decided to persevere. "Like I said before, you've got to think about it from the point of view of a fan. Getting a tweet, a retweet or even just a like from you could mean the world to someone if they are a big fan our yours. It might not mean anything to you, but it does to them. If you were supposed to be a heel it wouldn't matter so much, but you're trying to get over as a face. Give the fans more reasons to like you. Let them see you interacting with people and making them happy. Hell, you can even do live videos on Instagram or Facebook. Your fans would love that. Sure, people would show up and throw abuse at you as well, but if you won over some of those people while they were there, wouldn't that make it worth your time?"

"You really think doing live videos would be a good idea?" Lucy asked doubtfully. "Is that even allowed? I don't want Hunter or Vince getting in my grille about it."

"As long as you don't do something stupid like insulting people, swearing or spoiling storylines, why would they criticise you for interacting with the fans on your own time? You'd be trying to improve the reaction you're getting, which is better for everyone, including our team, and even including your opponents."

Lucy sat in silence after taking that in, thinking over what he had said. There was some logic to it, she had to admit. The truth of it was that she didn't really like interacting with the fans all that much. To her, it was more an unpleasant aspect of the job rather than something she would seek to do. But then, it was also true that she was supposed to be a face and she wasn't getting the correct reaction, which was frustrating and unpleasant. Whether she particularly cared about the fans or not, getting crapped on was never going to be a nice experience. If she could do something to try and turn that around, maybe it was worth the effort.

Looking at Seth, it occurred to her that he hadn't just come up with these suggestions off the top of his head; he had to have been actively putting time into thinking of ideas that might help her to get over with the fans. It was a nice thing for him to have done, and the fact that he had done it for her surprised her. "Thanks, Seth. I'll give it some thought," she promised him.

"You're welcome. Now, are we going to give these fans an enjoyable experience today? Remember, they'll have been standing in line for hours by the time we even get there."

"Yeah, we'll make it good for them," Lucy said. "The new, fan-friendly Lucy Thorne starts here."

Something inside of Seth made him doubt that, but at least she had listened to his suggestions and apparently taken them on-board. If she did do more to interact with the fans, maybe that, added to the fact that she was now a Shield team member would actually get her over. It would be difficult if Stephanie and Vince continued to book her in such an over-the-top manner, but again, maybe being a part of The Shield would help with that, too. It was easier to book someone to take losses or beat downs but still look strong overall as part of a team than it was if they were competing as a singles wrestler.

At that moment, Seth suddenly asked himself why he was spending so much time thinking about Lucy Thorne's career. He barely knew the woman, and didn't particularly like what he did know so far. Part of it was that she was a very attractive woman, he had to admit. If it had been a guy who had been drafted to the team and he had shown up with an attitude like Lucy's, he knew he would barely have given him the time of day. With that in mind, he decided to see if she really was as good as her word at the upcoming meet and greet. It promised to be a real learning experience for him, as far as getting to know his new partner was concerned. He knew that Dean and Roman would ask questions, too; particularly Roman, who was the conscience of The Shield.

Meanwhile, it had dawned on Lucy that this was the second time she'd had a conversation with Seth and it was the second time that it had been all about her. She knew that she wouldn't have been at all happy if the roles had been reversed - the difference being that she would have made her unhappiness perfectly clear, whereas Seth seemed to be a more patient person than her. The problem she had was that she wasn't all that great at social interaction, especially not when it when it wasn't about herself.

"We've talked about me the whole journey so far," she said awkwardly. "Why don't you tell me a bit about you?"

"I will, next time we've got more time to talk," Seth said, appreciating the fact that she had asked. "We'll be there in a few minutes."

"Okay," Lucy said, feeling even more awkward than before. "Did you always want to be a wrestler, though? Did you come out to meet and greets when you were a kid?"

"As often as I could," Seth confirmed, smiling at the memory. "My stepdad would take me to shows whenever they were in the area, even though we never had much money. He knew how much I enjoyed it. It was our thing to do together, you know? We always had so much fun."

There were several nuggets of information in that reply for Lucy to consider. Seth had lived with a stepdad rather than his own father, and had spent a lot of quality time with the stepdad. He had also enjoyed wrestling all his life, and had come from a poor background. Those things were all about as much of a contrast to her own childhood as it was possible to imagine.

While having doctors for parents had allowed her to grow up in a more privileged environment than Seth had, their focus on their careers had denied her the kind of close parental interaction that he seemed to be describing. It made her feel jealous of him, even though she knew that made no real sense.

"Do you see your real dad?" Lucy asked, uncharacteristically trying to use a slightly gentler tone.

"Nope," Seth answered, clearly not upset in the least about the fact. "He bounced on me and mom before I was a year old, and neither of us have seen him since. I'm happy to keep it that way. The guy is a piece of garbage from everything I've heard. I don't even consider him to be my dad. I call my stepdad dad whenever I speak to him."

Lucy felt touched by that. The range of emotions she experienced around Seth continued to take her by surprise. "Do your parents ever come to shows now?"

"Occasionally," Seth smiled. "They'll be coming to Wrestlemania this year for sure."

"We're nearly there," the driver announced, before Lucy could say that she looked forward to meeting them.

She could already see the truth of the statement for herself. Up ahead, she could see the Toys R Us store, with an enormous line of people snaking it's way down the entire length of that building and all the way past the adjacent store as well.

"Fucking Norah!" Lucy exclaimed when she took in the amount of people that were waiting to meet them. There was no chance of them all getting in during the two hour period.

For his part, Seth had never heard quite such a typical English thing to say as that in his life and it made him burst out laughing. "Fucking Norah? What on Earth is that supposed to mean?"

Feeling her cheeks reddening, Lucy had to try not to laugh along with him. It felt like she had been caught out saying something quite so English as that. "Actually, I didn't even say it properly," she admitted. "It should be bloody Norah, and no, I don't know what it means."

"Well I like fucking Norah better; it's funnier," Seth giggled as their driver parked the SUV near to the Toys R Us staff entrance.

Seeing the happy smile on his face, Lucy felt something stir inside her for the briefest of moments, but she quickly forced it aside before he could read her expression, or so she thought.

"Let's get this show on the road," she said, quickly getting out of the SUV.

As Seth got out of his side of the vehicle, he found himself wondering what exactly he had just seen a flicker of on his new partner's face. Had it been genuine warmth for the first time, or had it even been something more? Whatever it was, he liked it a lot.


	8. Chapter 8

A short, overweight woman with blonde hair was waiting at the employee's entrance to greet Seth and Lucy. She smiled at them as they approached. "Hey guys, I'm Lindsay. Please come through, we have everything set up for you."

Seth greeted her on behalf of both visitors and followed her into the building, Lucy trailing behind. They were lead into what looked like a staff room. There were a couple of couches that had seen better days, as well as a table and chairs in similar condition. A work surface ran along the back of the room, on top of which sat a coffee machine and a microwave. Thankfully, Seth saw some Starbucks cups arranged near the microwave. As a coffee snob, he couldn't have gone for the cheap stuff the staff were presumably provided with.

"I just had someone run around the corner to grab some coffees and teas," Lindsay said, gesturing to the Starbucks cups. "Help yourselves to whatever you'd like, then I'll take you through to the store."

"Very hospitable," Lucy mumbled to Seth as she selected a cup of tea, adding milk and sugar. "One think I miss about home is Yorkshire Tea."

"Can't say I've ever tried it," Seth said pleasantly, choosing to go with a black coffee with just a touch of sugar.

"We're on tour in England in two weeks," Lucy reminded him. "I'll make sure you get a proper cup of Yorkshire Tea while we're there."

"It's a date," Seth chuckled.

Lucy paused for a brief moment, raising an eyebrow slightly, wondering why he'd said that. Then she realised she was being stupid; he had just been making a joke. Dismissing it, she turned around to the Toys R Us employee, who's name she had already forgotten. "Okay, lead the way. Let's get this thing started."

"Sure thing," Lindsay said happily. She lead them out of the staff room, down a corridor and through a door which required a code to unlock it. Entering the store itself, Lucy saw that even more fans were already waiting inside, making it even less likely that the ridiculously large crowd they had seen outside would all get to make it to the front of the line during the available two hour period. She certainly wasn't going to be hanging around, that was for sure. Toys R Us were paying for two hours, so two hours they would get. Remembering that encounters with sweaty hands were imminent, she put her gloves on, struggling with her cup of tea as she did so. Just in front of her, she saw Seth going through the same process.

It only took seconds for the waiting crowd to see Lucy and Seth walking across the store. A loud cheer erupted. Lucy always found it strange that the fans would cheer her when she was at an event like this, yet she was always booed furiously at the actual shows. It made no real sense, but then as far as she was concerned, the booing made no sense at all anyway.

A small stage had been erected for the purposes of the meet and greet session, comprising a table, two rather uncomfortable looking plastic chairs and a large WWE logo on a background board. Two members of WWE's security staff were waiting on the stage, along with a female WWE employee who was there to make sure the fans came up in an orderly fashion, and to take pictures for them using their cell phones. It was all standard fare that Lucy had seen more times than she could count.

"Okay guys, I'll leave you to it," Lindsay said humbly. "Thanks a lot for coming."

"Thanks for the fifteen grand," Lucy thought, then remembered she was only going to get a quarter of the money thanks to the rule Roman had told her about. That was worth a sigh.

Nodding kindly to Lindsay, Seth walked onto the stage first, giving the fans a wave as they roared their approval. Lucy followed him up the two steps and onto the stage, to be greeted by a wave of boos, albeit more good-natured ones than she had gotten on Raw a couple of nights earlier. She smiled as if amused - not that she was - and gave them a wave anyway. Being booed at a signing was new, and she quickly figured out what the deal was. The latest thing was going to be cheering the three guys in The Shield and booing her. How tiresome that was going to be, she thought with another sigh.

"Guys, let me know when you're ready to start," the female employee said, without bothering to introduce herself. "Same old rules as usual; one item to be signed and one picture per fan."

Lucy sat down first, taking the seat furthest away from the steps where the fans would climb onto the stage. With a bit of luck, it would give them a chance to fawn over Seth before they got to her. She took a moment to arrange the table to her liking, moving aside the stack of generic promo shots that had been provided to be signed for fans who hadn't brought anything of their own, and putting her cup of tea down where she had quick access to it between meeting fans. Looking out at the line of people that snaked its way to the stores entrance doors, Lucy could see people wearing her merchandise. Those people at least would be happy that they had gambled correctly on her being one of the two Shield members they had been promised.

"All set?" Seth asked her after taking a healthy drink from his coffee cup. With a mischievous grin, he added, "Remember, this is day one of the fan-friendly Lucy Thorne."

"Oh, sorry, Vince, I didn't recognise you for a moment," Lucy said dryly. "Any more orders before we start, boss?"

"That's it for now," Seth chuckled, enjoying getting a reaction out of her. With that, he signaled that they were ready to start.

Settling down for the long haul, Lucy did her best to smile and speak kindly to everyone who came onto the stage, as well as posing in whatever manner they asked for their picture. It grew monotonous very quickly, but she was used to that. Greeting, shake hands, sign, take picture, move on to the next one. Very rarely did anyone actually have anything interesting to say.

About half an hour into the session, the routine was broken when someone actually did have something out of the ordinary to say.

"Hey, man," Seth greeted a guy who looked to be in his early twenties. He was wearing a Shield shirt and had a promo image of the three Shield guys for Seth to sign. They shook hands and exchanged a few words, then, while Seth was signing the picture, the fan offered his hand to Lucy.

"You're from Leicester, right?" he asked as they shook hands, although everyone already knew the answer, given that she was announced from Leicester, England before every match.

"I am," Lucy replied cautiously, wondering where this was going.

"Do you support Leicester City? The soccer team?"

Ignoring her impulse to snap at him that it was called football, not soccer, Lucy said, "Yes, I'm a big fan. We're champions of the Premier League," she added proudly. Her team winning the championship had been the mostly unlikely event in the history of England's top league.

"Yeah, well, they just fired their manager," the fan told her, matter of fact.

"What?" Lucy exclaimed in horror. It was true that the team's results had been extremely disappointing this season, but everyone loved Claudio Ranieri, the team's Italian manager.

"I just saw it on my phone," the fan said. "I'll show you after we've taken the picture."

Forcing herself to smile, Lucy posed for the picture, then waited while the fan got his phone back and pulled up the news page. He handed the phone over and she read the headline which confirmed the news he had given her. Misunderstanding what was going on, the woman who was running the session came over and tried to usher the fan off the stage. "Move along, please. There are other people waiting to..."

"Go away," Lucy snapped at her, fixing her with an icy glare for a moment before directing her attention back to the article.

"Lucy, let's go," Seth urged.

Lucy handed the fan's phone back without a word, feeling her blood boiling at the decision her team's owners had taken. She barely spoke to the next few people who came to the stage, too busy fuming inside to think of anything nice to say. She felt more like punching or kicking something than shaking hands with strangers.

A female fan approached the table, clearly nervous. Wearing a Lucy Thorne T-shirt, she put a replica Raw Women's Championship on the table in front of Lucy as her item to be signed. Seth gave the fan a pleasant greeting, which she returned in kind, then she spoke to Lucy with something approaching awe in her voice. "Lucy, could you sign this, please? I was really hoping you'd come today. It's so awesome to meet you."

"Why do you want me to sign that?" Lucy asked absently. "I've never won the Raw Women's Championship."

"Not yet, but I'm sure you will," the fan said enthusiastically, despite the cool reception she was getting from her idol.

"Yeah, maybe," Lucy mumbled. She signed the belt without showing any real interest.

"Seth, do you mind if I get the picture just with Lucy?" the fan asked nervously.

"Sure, go right ahead," Seth said kindly, moving back from the table a bit so that he wouldn't be in the shot. Watching as Lucy posed for the picture, barely raising a smile, he found himself getting annoyed at her lack of professionalism. This was exactly the kind of situation he had described in the car earlier - a fan who had probably been hoping to get the chance to meet Lucy Thorne for months. He could tell that the poor girl felt very disappointed by the encounter as she picked up her belt and left. He filed the incident away, determined to make a point of it after the event.

* * *

By the end of the two hour session, Lucy's mood had not improved. Often, all it took was one thing to set her off and she was in a bad mood for the rest of the day. What she really wanted to do now was find somewhere quiet to sit and have some lunch in private, giving herself half a chance at cooling off before traveling to that night's house show. She cared deeply about Leicester City, and had felt very close to Ranieri, the now departed manager. All of the team's fans had felt that way after he had guided them to their unprecedented success the previous season. With her anger failing to dissipate, the last thing she wanted was to be bothered by any more people, so she kept tight-lipped as the fat woman who worked for Toys R Us blabbered on about what an honour it had been to have her and Seth come to their store.

Lucy climbed into the SUV without saying anything to the driver and sat there looking out of the window at nothing in particular as the vehicle made its way back into traffic.

"Lucy, I have to say something about how you were back there," Seth said beside her, obviously trying not to sound overly confrontational. It did him little good, for she was in no mood to hear what he had to say.

"Save it, Seth. I'm not in the mood right now," she told him dismissively.

Bristling, Seth said, "No, I'm not going to save it. You got some news you didn't like about your team and you spent the rest of the session sitting there with a face like a wet weekend. There was one girl in particular who was so pleased about meeting you, yet you just..."

"I'm not listening, you do know that, right?" Lucy cut in sulkily, refusing to even look at him.

"Do you have to act like such a child?" Seth asked heatedly. "What you did back there was really unprofessional."

That pushed Lucy's temper over the edge. Snapping around to face him, she yelled, "And who the fuck are you, Seth? Huh? Are you the fucking boss of me? No. You're nothing to me. Shut your fucking mouth, and get off my back."

"Wow, you're a real charmer," Seth said, shaking his head. "I was telling the guys that I didn't think you were so bad after all, but this is the real Lucy, isn't it? The selfish, ignorant bitch. Just what everyone in the women's locker room lead me to expect."

"You know what?" Lucy raged. "Fuck the women's locker room, fuck 'the guys,' and fuck you. Do not talk down to me, ever. You're in no position to judge me, you self-righteous wanker."

"Uh, do you want me to pull over?" the driver asked nervously, looking at them in his mirror.

Seth felt his cheeks reddening in anger at the way Lucy had just spoken to him, but he did his best to keep calm. "No, keep driving," he said.

Lucy returned to looking out of the window, but she had one more shot to fire at Seth. "I'm done. I want off this fucking team. I never wanted to be on it to start with."

"Good, we never wanted you anyway," Seth snapped back, unable to stop himself stooping to her level. "We'd rather have someone without the awful attitude, and ideally someone who can wrestle."

"Fuck you," Lucy said, feeling her hands shaking with rage.

The most heavy of atmospheres hung over them during the rest of the journey back to the hotel, making it a thoroughly unpleasant experience. When the driver pulled up outside the entrance, Lucy was out of the vehicle in a flash, slamming the door behind her as hard as she could. She marched into the building, feeling tears stinging her eyes. With perfect timing, Roman and Dean had just emerged from one of the elevators, laughing at some joke or other.

"Hey," Dean called out to her. "What did you do, leave him behind?"

"I wish I had," she replied nastily, taking both men aback with the venom in her voice.

"Woah, what's your problem?" Roman asked as she stormed past them.

"The guy's a prick," she said before she just beat the closing doors in time to get in the elevator.

By then, Seth had entered the lobby. Roman and Dean walked over to him. "What the hell is going on?" Roman asked. "You guys were fine this morning."

"Well we're not fine now," Seth said, still not able to calm himself down. "She had a really shitty attitude at the meet and greet. I confronted her about it in the car and she blew up, shouting and swearing and throwing insults around. She said she wants off the team, so I told her we never wanted her to start with. I'm going to call Vince, Hunter, whoever, and get this taken care of right now."

Roman and Dean looked at each other, shocked expressions on their faces.


	9. Chapter 9

"No one's calling anyone," Roman told Seth, frustration written all over his face. "Damn it, twice in three days I'm playing peacemaker."

"Don't bother, just get her off the team," Seth said heatedly.

"No one's calling McMahon, and no one's getting kicked off the team," Roman insisted. "That would look really bad on all four of us, and I'm not letting it happen. We've heard your side of the story, we should listen to Lucy's as well. There are two sides to every argument. I'll go up and speak to her."

Dean had stood there in silence, lost in thought during that short exchange. To him, Lucy had seemed upset as much as angry, possibly more so. He could have sworn he had seen tears in her eyes as she had stormed past him towards the elevator. It had dawned on him that maybe Lucy didn't act the way she did just to piss people off or draw reactions. Maybe it was some kind of defense mechanism she chose to employ, for whatever reason. He could definitely relate to that. Maybe, rather than giving her a lecture or the riot act, someone should try and help her with whatever she was struggling with. Little did he know, Seth had already come to similar conclusions about Lucy's manner, not that it had gotten him anywhere.

Considering the start that he and Lucy had gotten off to, and how reluctant he had been about working with her, Dean's reaction now was as surprising to him as it was to his two friends when he said, "No, I'll go up. She's in the room across from mine anyway."

Roman looked at him doubtfully. "You want to go up? Are you sure? I don't want this making worse."

"Honestly, I think I'm the best one to go up right now. I got this."

"Alright," Roman conceded, still not entirely convinced. He then looked at Seth. "Let's go and have a coffee."

Still angry, Seth trudged after Roman while Dean made his way over to the elevators. A couple of minutes later, he was on the third floor, standing outside Lucy Thorne's room. After knocking on the door and getting no reply, he called out calm as could be. "Lucy, it's Dean. How about you open the door?"

"Go away," the English woman called out from inside.

Keeping his voice perfectly calm, Dean called back, "I'll have to kick it in if you don't open it. Then the manager will get pissed off and probably call the cops on me. We'll have them giving us grief, and we'll have to pay for a new door. It'll be a lot easier if you just open it." He was glad that there was no one else around in the hallway to hear him.

A long moment passed in silence. Just before Dean was about to call out again, he heard the door being unlocked. It opened wide enough for Lucy to look around it and demand, "What? If you're here to get in my grille, save yourself the bother. I'm quitting the team as soon as I can get Vince to pick up his phone."

Dean saw that she had taken off her body armour and gloves, but hadn't had time to change out of the rest of her ring attire. He could also see that she had been crying. It didn't surprise him, given his suspicions about what was upsetting her. "I'm not here to lecture you, I'm here to talk," he said reassuringly.

Lucy studied him for a moment, trying to detect a lie in what he had said. His attitude was surprising to say the least. Failing to pick up on anything suspicious, she opened the door and walked back into the room. "Fine, you can come in. I don't know what good you think it's going to do, though."

After walking in and closing the door, Dean walked over to the one chair in the room and sat down. "You want to know what I think?" he asked. He didn't bother waiting for a reply. "I think I know how you're feeling. I don't just mean today, I mean since you joined WWE."

Lucy had walked over to the window and stood there looking down at the street. After a moment, she turned around to face him, hands on her hips, looking as confrontational she sounded when she asked, "Oh, do you indeed? And what makes you think you know the first thing about how I feel?"

"I've been there," Dean said simply.

The combination of the words he chose and the sympathetic look on his face had the effect of draining the anger out of Lucy, leaving her feeling strangely deflated instead. Slumping down onto the bed, she asked, "You have? Where is 'there' exactly?"

"Where you're not used to being around the same people nearly every night of the week," Dean began. "Hell, if you're like I was when I signed for WWE, you're not used to being around anyone at all, period. Then you're thrown into a locker room full of people you don't know, and you feel totally out of place. In your case, everyone probably felt wary of you, which I'm sure made it seem a lot worse for you."

"Wary of me?" Lucy asked, as if the suggestion was ridiculous. "Why would they be wary of me?"

"Think about it from their point of view," Dean said. "You came in, seemingly from nowhere. No one knew anything about you, other than you had been hand-picked by Stephanie McMahon. No one even knew you from the indies, because you never worked them. I remember you came in and started being pushed like crazy right from minute one. Add all of those things together, plus the fact that you almost certainly showed up in the locker room and didn't do anything to get to know anyone, and yeah, they were always going to be wary of you."

"Wary of me," Lucy mumbled to herself as she considered the prospect.

Dean read in her expression that he was starting to make contact with her. That in turn told him that he had been right in his assumptions. "And then," he went on, "because they were wary of you, you thought they didn't like you, so you picked that ball up and ran with it, am I right?"

Lucy shrugged. "I'm used to people not liking me. I never had friends in school, never had any after school, don't have any now. I don't give a fuck."

Again, it was just what Dean had suspected. "I know exactly what you mean," he said. "Like I said, I've been there. But you know what I figured during my first few months here? That this is a really, really crappy job to do when you have no one to travel with; no one to share a few beers with; no one to vent to after a shitty house show in front of a crowd that didn't give a fuck about anything you were doing. You need friends in this business, Lucy. Whether you want to accept it or not, that's a fact. You're never going to be in this for the long haul if you insist on trying to go it alone."

The way the conversation had gone was so surprising to Lucy that she had totally forgotten her previous anger and unhappiness. "So what did you do?" she asked, encouraging him to go on.

"I struggled, like you are, until they decided to form The Shield and picked me as one of the three. That pretty much forced me to get to know Roman and Seth, and you know what?"

"What?" Lucy asked, hanging on his every word now.

"Don't tell them I said this, but it was probably the best thing that had happened to me for a very long time." He pointed towards the door. "I've got two brothers down there now, who have my back come what may. Sure, we argue and we get on each other's nerves. But when it comes to the crunch? Those two guys would throw themselves in front of a bus for me of they had to, and I would for them. That's the kind of loyalty you'll get if you make an effort to become a part of this team, and that's the kind of loyalty you'll need to give to us in return."

"I thought you didn't want me on the team?" Lucy asked skeptically.

"I didn't," Dean admitted frankly. "I didn't think the idea of putting a woman on the team was the right way to go - still don't to be honest, but it's done now. Plus, your reputation preceded you, and I didn't want some bitch with a bad attitude ruining what we have."

"So what's changed now?" Lucy asked, eyeing him with suspicion again.

"When I saw you downstairs just now, I saw you weren't just angry, you had tears in your eyes. You were obviously upset about what had happened. I found myself wondering if you were in a similar situation to me all those years ago. And it seems I was right."

"So it seems,"Lucy muttered, looking down at the floor. "Seth just really got under my skin today, Dean. He didn't even give me a minute after we walked out of that stupid Toys R Us store before he started weighing in on me, calling me unprofessional and all that bollocks."

"Seth's just trying to look out for you," Dean said, quickly coming to his friend's defense. "Sure, he can be irritating at times. His timing isn't always the best, but his heart is in the right place. Knowing him the way I do, I'd make a bet that he's been spending quite a bit of his time since Monday night trying to think of ways to help you get over as a face."

Lucy looked up at Dean, suddenly feeling guilty for exploding at Seth the way she had. "Yeah, he has," she admitted. "He was talking to me about it earlier, before we got to the meet and greet."

"That's Seth all over," Dean smiled. "Like I said, he can be irritating at times, but he's only trying to help. I've never known anyone as generous with their time as Seth. I can't tell you how many hours we've spent just talking about whatever problems I've had on my mind. Roman can get on your nerves at times as well, talking about his family all the time, especially his daughter. I'm irritating sometimes, too, and so are you. The thing is though, anyone can be irritating at times, that's just being human. I mean, I wind the guys up because I can never sit down and have a serious conversation."

Smiling, Lucy pointed out, "You're not doing a bad job at the minute." Dean was hardly a world-renowned philosopher, but he was trying his best with his simple, yet strangely effective advice.

"I guess I'm not," Dean realised. He paused for a second then asked, "So, how about it? Are we going to be a team or not?"

"What if I say yes?" Lucy asked. "I'm sure Seth hates me after what happened before. I went in pretty hard on him."

"So you go down there and apologise to him like a man. Uh, I mean like a woman," he corrected with a laugh.

Lucy took a minute to think about everything they had discussed. She was of the opinion that Dean had given her some very good advice. There was a lot of logic in what he had said about having some friends on the road with her having the effect of making the job seem a lot easier. Lonely nights in hotel rooms were certainly not much fun. Forming a close bond with these three guys definitely wouldn't be easy, but she owed it to herself to give it an honest try. In fact, she owed it to them as well. The higher ups at WWE were relying on all four of them to make the new Shield team a success.

"Alright, I'll come down with you and apologise to Seth," she decided. "But you need to realise that I can't promise I'm not going to blow up again. I've always had a temper, and I can't just turn it off at the click of my fingers."

"Wouldn't expect you to," Dean shrugged. "No one's perfect. But there's a big difference between acting confrontational all the time and loosing your cool once in a while." He looked over at the digital clock on the nightstand beside the bed. "Look, are we going to move? We're going to be late for the house show if we hang around much longer."

"You're right," Lucy said, looking at the clock herself and quickly standing up. "Give me a couple of minutes to get changed and I'll be right with you. Go back downstairs if you want. I'll come and find you."

Dean thought about that for a second before deciding that she might feel more at ease walking up to Seth and Roman if he was with her. "Nah, it's fine. I'll hand around outside for you. Just don't take forever." With that, he got up and walked out of the room.

Lucy emerged a few minutes later, dressed in a clean set of clothes and pulling her case along behind her. "Let's go," she said, managing a smile.

As they walked towards the elevator, Dean could tell that she was mulling over whether to say something else, so he stayed quiet to give her the chance to make the decision, whatever it was.

"Dean?" she ventured just before they reached the bank of elevators.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you for coming up. You didn't have to do that."

Dean gave her an easy smile. "You got it. But don't expect me to do it again."

Lucy chuckled. "I won't. You've got an image to keep up, right?"

"Right," he agreed as a loud ping indicated the arrival of one of the elevators.

It did not take them long to find Roman and Seth sitting in a booth in the hotel's bar, two empty coffee cups on the table in front of them. Roman was sitting facing the entrance to the bar. Noticing them approaching, he greeted them pleasantly. "Hi guys. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I think so," Lucy said as Seth turned to look in their direction. She realised it was time for her to come through on what she had promised Dean upstairs. "Seth, I owe you an apology," she said genuinely. "I shouldn't have blown up at you like that in the car. I was out of line. I'm sorry."

For his part, Seth had allowed Roman to talk him down from his threat of calling Vince or Hunter to ask for Lucy's removal from The Shield. Now feeling calmer, he was able to recognise the sincerity in the apology he had just been given. He wasn't sure what Dean had said to Lucy upstairs, but it appeared that he had managed to get through to her somehow. It was in the best interests of all four of them if he was gracious enough to accept the apology, even though he was still sore over how badly she had spoken to him.

"Okay," he nodded graciously, before standing up. "We really should get moving, we've got quite a drive to get to the show, and I've still got to get changed."

Dean clapped Seth on the shoulder as they walked towards the bar's entrance and spoke to Lucy. "Now you get to see Seth's driving. If that doesn't put you off traveling with us, I don't know if anything else will."

"Yeah, very funny," Seth said, managing a chuckle.

As they walked on ahead, Roman fell in step next to Lucy. "You sure you're okay?" he asked quietly, ever concerned about the other members of his team.

"I'm fine," she assured him with a thin smile. "I'm an idiot, but I'm fine. Dean's full of surprises, isn't he?"

"You couldn't hope to meet a nicer guy, once you get to know him," Roman said fondly. The tone of voice he used touched Lucy, reinforcing in her mind just how close the three men were to each other. Would they come to speak of her in the same manner, with the passage of time? Certainly not with the way she was going so far, she had to admit, feeling downcast about her own stupid behaviour.

The three men had to go up to their rooms to get their cases, and Seth needed to change out of his ring attire. While she waited for them to return, Lucy walked over to the reception desk and checked out of the hotel, then found somewhere to sit in the lobby. Left with a few minutes alone to think, she ran over the day's events in her head. She had let herself down at the meet and greet by letting the bad news about Leicester City's manager losing his job get to her. Looking back on it, she realised what a stupid thing that was to have gotten worked up about, which had left her unfocused on the fans she was being paid to meet. Seth had been totally right to call her unprofessional. Even worse, she had then let herself down even further by losing her temper with Seth in the car when he had called her out on the way she had been acting. He had been trying to help, she realised that now, albeit not at the most opportune moment.

At least Dean had been able to drill some sense into her. After listening to him and seeing how the guys interacted with each other and spoke about each other, she could tell that she was onto a good thing being a part of this team, if only she could stop herself from ruining it with her stupid attitude. That was easier said than done, but she owed it to herself try her very best. It dawned on her that she might have just arrived at the first big crossroads of her wrestling career. In one direction lay happiness and success as a part of The Shield; in the other lay gradual failure, with the McMahon's losing faith in her because of her inability to work with others. Even her favoured status with the bosses could only last so long if she was consistently a problem in the locker room, she was intelligent enough to acknowledge that. She knew which of the two options at the metaphorical crossroads she preferred to take. The decision was a no-brainer.

"No fucking around now, it's time to grow up," she muttered under her breath, with determination. Then her mind drifted to what Dean had said about the women in the locker room being wary of her. She certainly hadn't helped herself in that regard, either, if that was the way they had felt. While she had thought she was giving as good as she got, they had probably looked at it as her trying to bully them. That in turn left her wondering what might happen if she showed up in the locker room later and made an effort to be nice to the other women. To her surprise, she was now looking forward to getting to the arena for that night's house show.

Maybe wrestling really could be enjoyable, and not just a well-paying job.


	10. Chapter 10

Thanks to an having an easier time with traffic than they had expected, the Shield quartet had made it to the arena with plenty of time to spare before the call time for the house show. When Lucy walked into the women's locker room, she saw that she was the third to arrive. Bayley was already there, always the first to arrive. Lucy had jokingly wondered on more than one occasion if she slept outside the arenas, waiting to be admitted at the earliest possible opportunity. Emma was the other early arrival on this particular occasion.

With the morning's events and her pep talk still fresh in her mind, Lucy made the effort to greet her two colleagues with a smile as she walked across the room and set her case down next to where Bayley had chosen to change. "Hey," she said pleasantly.

"Hi," Bayley smiled, seeming a little surprised to be spoken to in such a manner. "How are you, Lucy?"

"I'm not too bad. You?"

"I'm great," Bayley said enthusiastically. "I'm wrestling Sasha tonight, which I always love doing, and I was talking to Charlotte on the phone earlier. She's going to be back in two weeks, the Monday after we get back from England. She told me Vince told her we're going to be working with each other up to and including Wrestlemania, where I'm going to wrestle her for the title. How awesome is that?"

The beaming smile on the champion's face was infectious, even to Lucy. "That sounds awesome, Bay. I'd have liked to be a part of that, honestly."

"But you'll have some kind of match with Nikki," Bayley said excitedly. "Whether it's a team match or a one on one, it'll be great."

Lucy wasn't so sure about that, not entirely convinced by Nikki Bella's in-ring abilities. Forcing herself not to let the conversation take a negative turn, she said, "A mixed tag match might be good. Maybe a four on four?"

"That's a great idea," Bayley enthused. "They're two evenly matched teams. I love fantasy booking like this. It's so much fun."

Fantasy booking could hardly have been of less interest to Lucy, so she just smiled and lifted her case onto the bench to start unpacking her things. While she did so, Bayley and Emma started chatting away about something or other. When she had unloaded all of her gear, Lucy sat down on the bench and took out her phone. Unlocking the phone, she saw the Twitter icon on her front screen, making her think back to Seth's advice about using social media to interact with her fans a lot more. On the face of it, it did seem like good advice. People would obviously be more inclined to cheer for someone they found to be likable off-screen. Bayley herself was evidence of that.

Lucy opened the Twitter app and checked her notifications. Quickly, she was reminded as to why she tended to steer clear of social media. All of the recent posts she had been tagged in were either abusive or over-the-top fanaticism. She had never had any time for either of those extremes. Scrolling further down, she started to come across tweets relating to that morning's meet and greet session. People had been uploading the pictures they had gotten, for some reason feeling the need to tag her and Seth in them. It occurred to her that she simply didn't understand the basic principles behind social media or why people used it. None of it seemed to have much purpose, as far as she could make out.

Then, when she was about to lose interest and close the app down, she saw a person she actually remembered meeting. Seth wasn't in this particular picture; it was the female fan with the Raw Women's Championship belt who had asked him if she could get a picture just with Lucy. Studying the picture, Lucy saw how happy the young blonde woman, who was apparently called Katie, looked in the picture, whereas the expression on her own face barely looked interested. To her own surprise, it made Lucy feel bad. She really should have made more of an effort for someone who was obviously such a big fan of hers.

Seth's advice had been to interact with people more on social media, but the problem Lucy now had was that she had no idea what to actually write. Would a simple retweet of the picture be enough? No, she admitted to herself, that was just trying to take the easy way out. Maybe sending a tweet back to Katie would make her day? With a sigh, she acknowledged the voice in her head that told her she owed the girl an apology for acting so uninterested in meeting her. Turning to Bayley, she held out her phone and asked, "Hey, how do I send a message to this person? Can I even do that if I don't follow her?"

"Yeah, you can," Bayley said, taking the phone and sitting down next to her so they could both see the screen. "You can DM anyone you want once you're verified, whether you follow them or not." Showing Lucy how to begin sending a message, she said, "You just press here to get onto her page, then here to send a message."

"Thanks," Lucy said genuinely, taking her phone back. Showing her how to send a message on Twitter was such a small, insignificant thing, but it did a lot to show Lucy how willing the other women were to be friendly and helpful to her if she made the effort herself. Now she had to decide what to write in the message to Katie.

Several minutes later, after writing and deleting a few attempts at a message, she settled for one that she was happy to send. Deciding to get a second opinion on it, she turned to Bayley again, who was now tapping away at the screen of her own phone.

"Bay, read this will you?"

"Sure," Bayley agreed. Taking the offered phone, she read the message out under her breath. "It was nice to meet you today, Katie. I'm sorry I didn't seem very focused at the time, I had just gotten some bad news and my mind was on that. Your support means a lot. Come meet me again when I win the Raw Women's Championship."

With a smile, Bayley handed the phone back and said, "That's sweet. You should send it."

Taking that at face value, Lucy hit send.

"You're in a good mood today," Emma said to her, her tone pleasant enough.

As was often the case, sarcasm was the first thing that came to mind for Lucy, but she pushed it aside and said, "I am in a good mood. I had a talk with Dean earlier, and yeah, I'm feeling a lot more positive about this whole Shield thing now. The guys have doubts about whether it was a good idea to add a woman to the team, but I can't fault them for that. I didn't really get it myself, but Vince was really selling it to me hard, so I went for it. I think he'd have given it to Charlotte if I'd have passed it up."

"Well, I think you're a better fit for The Shield than Charlotte is," Emma said kindly. "You've got the look of a Shield member. Charlotte's badass, and great in the ring, but I can't see her in The Shield. You really looked the part on Monday night. Personally, I can't wait to see you and Nikki going at it."

"Thanks," Lucy said warmly, genuinely surprised by the compliments. Pleasingly, she was able to think of something nice to say in return. "I'm glad they brought you back with the same gimmick you had before you got injured. That Emmalina idea looked like it was going to be bloody awful, and there was no need to change what you were doing. We need more good heels, and I think you could make it if they book you right."

Although the comments came across as somewhat arrogant, Emma could tell that Lucy meant well, for once. She had been trying to pay a compliment, so Emma smiled and said hopefully, "Maybe you could put me over, if we get booked against each other at some point?"

"I don't decide the outcomes of my matches," Lucy said naively.

Emma tried again, not letting her surprise show at how little Lucy seemed to know about the business she had worked in for over a year. "I know. I didn't mean that I had to beat you, necessarily. I meant, like, if we wrestle, make me look good. Let me kick your ass for a bit. It would be a huge deal for me if I gave Lucy Thorne a serious beating. I'm picturing a match where I dominate early on, beating you down, you come back for the finish with your spinning heel kick and then the Thorne in the Side sitdown piledriver thing you do for the win. But then I beat you down again after the match, attacking you from behind while you celebrate or something. You'd still get the W, but it would be a huge deal for me to look that strong against you."

It dawned on Lucy as she listened to Emma speak so passionately about what a huge deal beating her up would be, just how selfishly she had been booked by Vince since her arrival in WWE. There was no chance he would put her in a match like Emma had just described unless he was asked to do so, even though it made a lot of sense from a business point of view. Much as she liked to be pushed, and liked the fact that she won a vast majority of her matches, Lucy felt it was obvious that strong face characters such as herself needed strong heel characters to work with. "I wouldn't have a problem with that," she decided. "It's Vince who you'd have to sell it to, though."

The locker room door opened. Sasha Banks, Dana Brooke and Nikki Bella all walked in, their arrival bringing an abrupt end to the conversation. Lucy diverted her attention back to her phone. Her determination to do better could only stretch so far - certainly not as far as being civil to her arch-rival Sasha Banks. As the other women exchanged greetings and started chattering away to each other, Lucy noticed that she had a notification telling her that she had received a direct message on Twitter. Tapping the notification took her straight to the message, a reply from Katie, she saw.

"Oh my god, I'm crying right now," she read quietly. "Thank you so much for writing to me. You inspire me in so many ways. I hope you'll be okay with the bad news you got."

Feeling humbled by the message, Lucy also felt stupid that the bad news in question was her football team choosing to fire their manager. She typed back a simple response to say that she would be fine, and left it at that. At least Katie was happy now, she thought with an inward shrug, guessing that Seth had been right about the whole social media thing. A simple two line message had meant the world to that young woman. It would be easy to do that kind of thing more often.

"Lucy? Do you mind if we talk for a minute?" The slightly hesitant voice belonged to Nikki Bella.

"Okay," Lucy agreed, over the top of the other chatter than now filled the room. "Let's go outside, where we can hear ourselves think."

The two women stepped out of the locker room. Even though the hallway was busy with crew members hurrying about the place, it was a lot quieter than the locker room. "What's up?" Lucy asked.

"I wanted to talk to you about our rivalry," Nikki said, looking a little uncomfortable at the prospect.

"What about it?" Lucy asked, her lack of patience starting to make itself apparent.

"The thing is," Nikki began, seemingly unsure as to how to put what she wanted to say, "I think we both need to get something out of this program. What I mean is, I've just turned heel, so I need to get over as a heel. You also need to, uh..."

"Try and get people to cheer for me," Lucy helped out.

"Right," Nikki agreed, glad that she wasn't having the hard time she had anticipated with the conversation so far. "What I was thinking was, neither of us are going to get what we need out of this thing if you steamroll over me like you have done with other people. It would make me look lame as a heel, and people would still boo you because of the awful booking. No one wants to watch someone win all the time."

"Aren't you with John Cena?" Lucy quipped with a raised eyebrow. "Maybe you should be giving this advice to him?"

"I'm not here to talk about John's booking," Nikki said evenly. "What I'm asking is, can we agree that it will be better for both of us if I get the upper hand on you in some of our encounters? I don't know what the outcome of this thing is going to be at Wrestlemania, but I assume you guys will be going over. If that is the case, I really need to get some decent beat downs in on you before then."

Lucy smiled. "You know, I made a conscious effort to show up tonight and be more positive to people. So far, all I've had is people asking to kick the shit out of me."

"Well, I really think..." Nikki started to defend her position, but Lucy cut her off.

"Relax, Nikki, I'm joking. You're right, it's in both of our interests if you give me a bit of a kicking. I'll talk to Vince about it on Monday. Fair enough?"

"Fair enough," Nikki grinned.

"There is something I want you to do in return, though," Lucy said.

"Sure. What is it?"

"I want you to take one of those Shield powerbombs from me. The guys will load you up like they usually do for Roman. Is that going to be a problem?"

"No problem," Nikki agreed. "Honestly, I'd rather take that than the Thorne in the Side. I'm a bit wary of piledriver moves, with my neck and all."

Lucy stopped herself before she could scoff at Nikki's insecurity. There was a lot to be admired in the way Nikki had come back from such a severe injury, and it was only natural that she was cautious about hurting her neck again. "I'll tell you what," Lucy decided. "We'll try and get through this thing without me hitting a Thorne in the Side on you. We can tease it in matches, but have you counter it. It will probably mean you'll have to eat a pin from the spinning heel kick instead, but if that's what you'd rather do?"

"It is. Thanks, Lucy," Nikki said warmly.

"No worries," Lucy said, then walked back into the locker room, holding the door open for her on-screen rival.

"Nikki, be careful she doesn't screw up and injure herself against you," Sasha Banks chirped up when she saw them returning. "You'll get the blame for it, for no reason."

"Shut your pie hole, Banks," Lucy said dismissively. "We both know I tore my pec because you fucked up."

"How exactly do you figure that?" Sasha asked heatedly, walking around to confront the English woman. "It happened on a stupid hip toss - the simplest move in the world, and I was the one taking it from you. How did I injure you, when I was taking the damn move?" she demanded. "Explain that to me, genius."

The other women watched on, ready to step in if things got out of hand.

Lucy shrugged. "You didn't take it properly, obviously. Let's be honest, you can't get through a match without botching at least once. You completely ruined the Hell in a Cell match, after Vince let you main event a pay-per-view with it."

"That still gets to you, doesn't it?" Sasha smirked. "Charlotte and I have main evented a pay-per-view and you haven't, have you, golden girl?"

"I probably never will now, either, after the atrocity you made of it," Lucy snapped, feeling herself losing her grasp on her temper. "Vince will probably never trust a women's pay-per-view main event again after that. Frankly, I feel bad for Charlotte. She deserved better than what you gave her that night."

"Alright, that's enough," Emma said before Sasha could fire another volley, stepping in to split them up. Dana followed her lead and helped to separate the two angry women.

Directing a derisive snort towards Sasha, Lucy turned to Bayley. "Keep an eye on my things, Bay. I'm going to go see the guys for a bit." With that, she walked out of the locker room, considering herself to have taken the higher ground in the latest argument with her least favourite so-called colleague.


	11. Chapter 11

Contrary to her previous threat to walk into The Shield's locker room as if it were her own, Lucy knocked on the door and waited for an answer. Not that she would have minded seeing them wearing a bit less than usual, she thought with a smile. Seth in particular was about as close as it came to eye candy in WWE, in her opinion.

Seth himself opened the door a moment later, sadly still wearing the same outfit he'd had on during their trip to the arena. "Oh, hi," he smiled, all evidence of their previous disagreement gone from his tone as well as his expression. He obviously couldn't hold a grudge for long. "I'm glad someone came by. All I've had to do the last ten minutes is listen to these two on their phones. I'm bored out of my mind."

Although Lucy couldn't see Roman or Dean behind Seth as he stood in the doorway, she could them both talking away in the locker room. "Who are they talking to?" she asked, although she knew the answer.

"Their wives," Seth grinned.

"Dean and Renee aren't married," Lucy pointed out.

"They might as well be," Seth grinned again. "Come on, let's go have a coffee or something. How come you showed up here so quickly anyway?" he asked as they set off along the hallway.

Lucy sighed. "It was either that or murder Sasha Banks, and I'm supposed to be on my best behaviour."

With a grimace, Seth said, "You said in the car you were going to do your best to get along with the other women tonight. Sounds like that didn't last very long?"

"Oh, no, it was going fine," Lucy clarified. "I was chatting away with Bayley and Emma, then with Nikki too, when she showed up. Bayley taught me how to send direct messages on Twitter. I saw a tweet from that girl with the Women's Championship belt from this morning. I wrote to her and apologised for being off with her at the signing. I blamed it on having just received some bad news."

"That was really nice of you," Seth smiled. "I'm sure that meant a lot to her."

"Judging by the response I got back, yeah, it did. It made me want to do that kind of thing for people more often. I was in a great mood, but then Banks had to open her stupid mouth. She's lucky I didn't put my fist in it."

Seth stopped for a moment to say hello to one of the crew members they walked past, who he was apparently on first name terms with. When that was done, they continued walking towards catering and he carried on the conversation from where they had left off. "What exactly is the problem with you and Sasha?" he asked.

Lucy shrugged. "It started off as just one of those things, when you meet someone and you just don't take a liking to each other. I could tell we both felt that way about each other. Then, I had to wrestle her on a house show one night. You know, one of those deals where someone on NXT jobs to someone on the main roster."

Seth gave a single laugh. "I bet you didn't have to do that many times."

It hadn't been a question, so Lucy didn't bother answering him, instead continuing with her story. "During the match, I caught her pretty well with a punch and cut her cheek open below her eye. It was an accident, but after we got back to the locker room, she accused me of taking a shot at her. I told her if I had been taking a shot at her, she'd have still been lying in the ring, wondering what the fuck had hit her." She held her right fist up and grinned. "It only takes one of these."

Remembering her boxing background, Seth said, "Okay, Mike Tyson. I can see why Sasha didn't like getting that attitude from some newbie."

Lucy gave a derogatory grunt as they walked into the catering area and headed for the coffee machine. "Just because I was a newbie didn't mean I was going to stand for bullshit. If Banks didn't like that, it's not my problem."

"And then there was your pectoral injury," Seth recalled, handing Lucy a coffee, then setting the machine to work on pouring his own.

"Thanks, Seth. Where's the sugar?" Lucy saw the answer to her own question even as she asked it, and walked over to a nearby storage container to fetch a sachet of sugar.

Seth joined her a moment later with his own coffee, then they walked over and sat down at a nearby table. "Then the injury happened," he prompted again.

"Right," Lucy said, taking a sip of her drink before she was ready to go into detail. "Of all things, it happened on a hip toss. A stupid hip toss cost me five months on the sidelines. I'm not even sure how I got injured so badly. I just tried to take her over, and she had come at me from a weird angle, and she didn't jump into it right either. I didn't want to fuck the match up, so I tried to just haul her over and hit the move anyway, then boom…"

"Your pec went," Seth finished for her, grimacing as he imagined what the pain might have been like. Luckily for him, he was yet to experience a serious muscle tear injury. He strongly hoped it would stay that way, too.

"Yeah, it felt like I'd been stabbed in the chest. Obviously, I knew something was wrong straight away. I couldn't even lift my arm up properly, so I quickly told the ref we had to finished the match. There was no doubt in my mind that it was serious, and the doc told me right there in the ring that he suspected a pectoral strain or tear. When I got in the back, I was seriously pissed off at Banks, as you can imagine. Then, to make matters worse, she acted like she'd done nothing wrong. I lost my temper with her and told her she'd hurt me because she came at me from a stupid angle. She came right back and said I was the one who hadn't prepared for the move properly, and that the injury was my own fault for my poor positioning and execution. I guess we all know now whose side of that argument Vince came down on," Lucy said smugly.

Seth, however, realised that Vince coming down on Lucy's side and blaming Sasha didn't mean all that much, in terms of who had actually been at fault. Lucy was a McMahon favourite, which sadly meant a hell of a lot when it came to things like that. Seth considered it more likely than there had been fault on both sides. That was how accidents happened in the ring; it was just unfortunate that Lucy had sustained a serious injury from something so innocuous.

"You guys really should try and move on," he suggested after taking a drink from his cup, not wanting to get into a debate about who was to blame.

"I'm willing to try and do more to get along with people, but I'm not going as far as offering an olive branch to Banks," Lucy said definitively. "We're never going to be friends, and I'm totally fine with that. Let's have a subject change. What's your favourite memory?" she asked, plucking the first random thing out of the air that came to mind.

"Wrestling memory?" Seth asked with a smile, pleased that she was making some effort to ensure the conversation wasn't all about her, as it had been the last time they had chatted over coffee. Lucy nodded, so he went on. It didn't take much thought to come up with the answer. "Wrestlemania 31, when Roman and I beat Cesaro and Tyson Kidd for the tag titles. The crowd were right behind us that night and the match was amazing. I don't know if you remember it, but Cesaro and Tyson looked like they had the match won a bunch of times, but then for the finish I hit the ring got a Curb Stomp out of nowhere. The crowd went wild when I got the three count. I'll always remember thinking, when we were standing at the top of the ramp after the match, looking around Levi Stadium and celebrating with the titles, that it was a moment I would never forget." He showed her his arm, which was now covered in goosebumps. "Look at that, just by thinking back to it."

"Wow," Lucy smiled, looking at his arm, then into his eyes. It was the first time he had seen real, genuine warmth from her towards him. To his surprise, he found himself thinking that she really was beautiful when she had that look on her face. He wasn't sure if it was a good idea to be thinking of his new teammate like that.

Meanwhile, Lucy saw in his eyes exactly what he was thinking. Until then, she hadn't considered the possibility that Seth might find her attractive, as she did him. It was a very interesting development, that was for sure. She felt a strange fluttering sensation in her chest for a moment, then found herself considering the idea of leaning across the table and kissing him. Quickly, she forced that idea aside. Even if she was going to kiss the guy, it wasn't going to happen in the middle of catering, that was for sure. Everyone backstage would know about it in two minutes flat if she did that. Hiding her emotions by taking a long, slow drink of her coffee, she decided to wait and see what he said next.

"So, what's your favourite memory?" Seth asked, glad of having an easy question at hand to carry the conversation on.

Like Seth before her, Lucy did not need thinking time to come up with an answer. "Mine is from when I used to play cricket for my school," she began, smiling as she recalled it. "As I told you before, I was a bowler - a fast bowler to be more specific. In the game I'm talking about, my team had batted first and hadn't made a very good total, which put us bowlers under pressure to bowl the opposition out cheaply. The team we were against had three really good batters at the top of their order, and the first two people who bowled for us didn't manage to get anyone out. Then the captain told me to come on and bowl. My first ball was to this girl who was a left-hander. I was in one of those moods when you're determined you're going to do well, and I came steaming in to bowl. The first ball just managed to sneak through her defenses and bowled her. That means it hit her stumps," she clarified, not that Seth was really any the wiser. However, seeing how passionately she was speaking, he nodded to feign understanding, not wanting to stop her in full flow.

"The next girl who came in was the best batter on their team," Lucy went on. "She was a right-hander, so I'm now looking to swing the ball in towards her through the air, then have it move either further towards her or take it away from her off the seam when the ball pitches, depending on what delivery I bowl. My first ball to her swung in at her like a dream, moved even further in off the seam and hit her on the pads. I was certain it was out LBW, as were the rest of the team. We all appealed like crazy for it, but the umpire said not out. I'll never know how he turned that down. What I had noticed though, was that she was nowhere near hitting the ball. I decided to take the next one away from her, and she played at it and missed. I could really see she was on the ropes, not having a clue how to play what I was bowling. I brought the next one in at her again and hit her on the pads, but again it was not out. I took the next ball away from her, but I bowled it a bit too wide and she was able to leave it, even though I could see she was still struggling with the pace I was bowling at. So, that left me with one ball left in the over to bowl at her."

Seth had no clue about any of the cricket terminology she was using, but he still knew where the story was heading. "And you got her?" he ventured.

"I did," Lucy said, eyes looking slightly glazed over as she relived the scene in her mind. "I charged in and bowled the best ball I ever bowled. It swung in at her perfectly, then moved away off the pitch just the right amount." She motioned with her hand to demonstrate the trajectory of the delivery. "She had to play it as it was too close to her stumps to risk trying to leave it, but it moved away just enough to clip the edge of her bat, to be caught by the wicket keeper. I can remember running off celebrating like it was yesterday, with the other girls piling on top of me. After the game, the teacher who managed the team told me he'd never seen anyone bowl an over as good as that in person."

Finishing his coffee, Seth had to smile at the main thing he had taken away from listening to her passionate description. "You know, if you could show that kind of passion for your wrestling, it would probably do more than anything else towards getting you over with the fans." His kind tone kept the words from sounding overly patronising.

Rather than snapping at him, Lucy forced herself to take a moment to consider the advice. Maybe he had a point. It was possible that the fact she worked for WWE primarily because the money was really good actually showed in her in-ring work. Could the fans see that her heart wasn't in it to the extent that it was with someone like Bayley, who was out there every night literally living her dream?

"The thing is, I'm not like you, Seth," she said simply. "I'm not like you, or Bayley. You guys always wanted to be wrestlers. I just took the job because Stephanie McMahon sold it to me, then WWE came with an offer of a shit load more money than I was likely to make anywhere else. How am I supposed to just make myself passionate about it?"

"Get emotionally invested in it," Seth encouraged, his own passion for the business showing through quite clearly. "Get invested in your character and your storylines. Don't just go through the motions and take a pay check like you're working some nine to five in an office. This is one of the best jobs in the world. Look at Bayley when she won the Women's Championship; she cried her eyes out in the ring that night, and you know what? Most of us in the back cried right along with her, seeing what it meant to her. We all want our own moments like that. If the fans saw you caring about the business to that extent, you'd soon change a lot of opinions, I can tell you that. Basically, what I'm saying is put your heart into what you're doing. Right now, you really have no idea how great a time you could be having doing this job if you're just going through the motions."

Lucy nodded slowly, weighing up his suggestions. She could easily imagine herself getting as passionate about cricket as Bayley was about wrestling. In fact, she had been moved to tears on more than one occasion while watching the England cricket team. The question was, how could she make herself that passionate about wrestling? She supposed the same way she had become passionate about cricket: Learn everything about it, watch other people who were good at it, then focus on becoming the best she could be at it herself. And then it dawned on her; the perfect answer. The one thing that really annoyed her about WWE was people telling her that she couldn't wrestle; that she couldn't sell moves for others; that she only had a set of five moves of her own to use. Improving her in-ring work and proving those people wrong and trying to become one of the all time greats of women's wrestling was something she could definitely get passionate about.

"Do you think I could make it to the Hall of Fame one day?" she asked Seth, suddenly feeling like she needed his affirmation of her as yet unfulfilled potential.

Seth considered that for a moment before deciding that the best thing to do was give her an honest answer. "Yeah, I'm sure you will end up in the Hall of Fame if you stick at it long enough. Vince loves you, so it's pretty much a guarantee. The real question is not _can_ you get in the Hall of Fame, it's will you _deserve_ to be in it? There's a huge difference there."

Part of Lucy felt like she had essentially wasted the past year of her career with WWE, approaching every aspect of it in totally the wrong way. Maybe if she had handled things differently, including speaking to Vince about the over-the-top way he was booking her, she might never have ended up in a situation where a lot of fans were now determined to boo her regardless of what she actually did in the ring. Turning that around was going to take a lot of work, but Seth's advice, added to her own determination to make more effort to get along with her colleagues, gave her the newfound motivation to try.

"Thanks, Seth, I appreciate the advice," she said, meaning it. "Again, I'm sorry for going off at you in the car this morning. You really didn't deserve that."

"You're welcome, and forget what happened this morning, it's in the past," Seth said with a smile. "How about we go back and see if those two jokers are off their phones yet?"

As they walked back to The Shield's locker room, Lucy found herself thinking back to the moment in the middle of their conversation when she had felt like kissing Seth. She had absolutely no doubt that he had been thinking the same thing in that moment. Being honest with herself, she wished she had done what she usually did in life, and seized the moment. She should have kissed him. If only they hadn't been sitting in catering at the time, she would have done. Well, she told herself as they approached the women's locker room, it didn't have to be too late to seize the moment.

"Seth?" she said, stopping outside the door to the women's locker room. Luckily, the hallways were a lot less busy than they had been earlier, and no one was around.

"Yeah?" he asked, stopping next to her and looking at her with a slightly quizzical expression on his face.

"I'll catch up to you later," Lucy said, then reached up and planted a passionate kiss on his lips, enough to give him a taste of her. Without waiting for a response of any kind, she walked into the locker room and closed the door on him.

Seth stood there for a moment, surprised at what had just happened. If someone had told him a few days earlier that he would sit down and have a pleasant chat with Lucy Thorne, then she would end up kissing him in the hallway afterwards, he would have accused them of being on drugs. But those things had happened. Resuming his walk back to the locker room, a smile broke out on his face. Lucy had kissed him, and he wanted more. He wanted a lot more.


	12. Chapter 12

"Hello? Earth to Seth," Dean said, clicking his fingers in front of his friend's face. He then knocked his fist on the top of Seth's head. "Anyone in there?"

"Get off me, you dick," Seth giggled, shrugging Dean away.

"Stop being ignorant then, asshole," Dean fired back, only feigning his irritation. "We're trying to order food here, while you're sitting there looking like you're on a different planet."

"He's always on a different planet," Roman quipped, not looking up from the hotel's room service menu.

The three men had met up in Roman's room after the house show, intending to spend the night playing cards over a drink or two and a meal. Seth had been about as focused on his poker game as he had been on the rest of the conversation. His lack of focus had cost him about twenty bucks already. It was no good, he decided, he was going to have to go and talk to Lucy.

Since the moment she had kissed him outside of the women's locker room, he hadn't been able to stop thinking about her, or stop tasting her on his lips. Part of him wondered if she had done it just to play games with him, but to counter that there was the look he had seen in her eyes over the table in catering. There had been desire on both sides of the table in that moment, he knew that without doubt.

Adding to his frustration was the fact that she had immediately walked into the women's locker room, denying him the opportunity to respond to the kiss, or even to talk to her about it. He was sharp enough to realise that had been a very deliberate on her part, as was her polite rejection of Roman's offer to join them for the poker night. Seth knew that she had wanted the kiss to be playing on his mind, just like it was, and she had wanted the ball to be in his court in terms of whether he made the next move. There was no doubt in his mind that he would be making that next move.

He was also sharp enough to see that Lucy was a very assertive person, who liked to be in charge of things. She wanted to be in charge of whatever this thing was between them. No, he decided, it wasn't going to go like that. Lucy had taken the initiative by taking him by surprise with the kiss. Now he had the chance to take the initiative back, depending on how he handled making the next move.

"Guys, I'm going to take off," he announced after reaching a decision, pushing his chair back from the table and standing up. "There's something I've got to go and do."

"Surely you can wait until later to jerk one off?" Dean asked, grinning. Roman laughed, looking up from the menu.

"Very funny," Seth said on his way to the door. "I'll see you in morning."

"What's up with him?" Dean asked Roman after the door closed behind their friend.

"You tell me?" Roman shrugged, returning to studying the menu. "He's hardly said a world all night."

"You don't think he had another bust up with Lucy do you?" Dean asked, lounging back in his chair.

"No," Roman said simply. "I might not be the best judge of character in the world, but I think it's safe to say that Lucy's not one to keep it to herself when she's pissed off about something. We saw that first-hand this morning. She was fine in the car coming back here, so no, it's not that. If Seth's still acting strange tomorrow, we'll talk to him about it." He tossed the menu across the table to Dean. "Right now, you need to decide what you want to order. I'm hungry enough to eat a horse."

Catching the menu, Dean started reading the list of items, a confused expression on his face. Eventually, he said, "I don't see a horse on here."

* * *

Seth had had the foresight to pay attention to the room number Lucy had been given when their group had checked into the hotel. With the kiss fresh on his mind, he had considered that it might prove to be useful information. Now, standing outside of room 503, he was glad of his own swift thinking. Having to text her and ask for her room number certainly wouldn't have had the same impact as just showing up at the door. Taking a deep breath for courage, he gave the door a firm knock.

Several moments dragged by, with no sign of a response from inside. Seth began to wonder if Lucy was even in her room. Maybe she had gone down to the restaurant or the bar, or maybe she was in the room, but had decided to go to sleep early. He decided to knock once more before giving up, this time slightly louder than the first.

"Alright! Fucking hell!" he heard Lucy call out angrily, making him smile. "I don't want the room cleaning, and I haven't ordered room service," he heard next, along with footsteps approaching the door. When the door opened, his smile froze in place. She was standing there wrapped in a towel, hair still damp from the shower or bath she had obviously just gotten out of. Stunning didn't come close to doing her justice.

"Seth?" she asked, surprised to see him. "What are... Wait, how did you know what room I was in?"

Seth was glad that he was able to stop himself faltering in the response he had prepared ahead of time. "I didn't. You wouldn't believe how long it's taken me to work my way up here, knocking on every door in the place."

"Idiot," Lucy chuckled. "You'd better come in before some creepy little perv comes past and sees me." She held the door open for him to enter. The fact that he had sought out her room number and shown up uninvited had her already starting to feel turned on. She loved that kind of determination and assertiveness in a guy. He had to have been thinking about the kiss, and had decided to take matters into his own hands and act on it. Either that or he had come to blow her off, she admitted to herself, but he wasn't giving off those kind of vibes.

"So," she began, standing with her back against the door, trying not to let on that she knew his motives for coming to her room. "To get my room number you either eavesdropped on my conversation with the receptionist when I was checking in, or you went down and gave one of the girls on the desk some convincing bullshit. Either way, why are you here?"

Contrary to what Lucy hoped, Seth could already read in her eyes that she knew exactly why he was there. "We both know why I'm here," he said gruffly, stepping closer to her and looking right into her eyes. "You don't just get to kiss me once and then vanish into the women's locker room."

"Actually I do. I already did," she said, trying to act like she was in charge of the conversation, just as Seth had expected her to.

"I didn't say you didn't do it," he said. "I said you don't _get_ to do it."

"Oh yeah?" Lucy asked defiantly in the face of his challenge. "And what are you going to do about it, Rollins?"

By way of response, Seth pulled her tightly to him and began to kiss her. Within moments, both of them felt like their bodies were on fire for each other. Lucy couldn't stop herself letting out a moan of pleasure into his mouth; he really was a great kisser.

As nice as kissing her was, Seth was pleased when Lucy pulled back, took him by the hand and lead him over towards the bed. That was one thing he hadn't considered being forceful about, for obvious reasons. It was now also obvious, though, that she wanted them to make love.

"I hated you this morning, Seth," she said softly as he leaned in to kiss her again.

"And now?" he asked between kisses.

Lucy allowed the towel to fall away from her body, revealing it all to him. "Now? Not so much," she purred. With that, she lay down on the bed, pulling Seth down with her.

* * *

When Seth awoke, it took him a moment to remember where he was. Then it came back to him. This wasn't just any hotel room bed he was in; it was Lucy Thorne's bed. They had made love, ordered some room service food, made love again, and then she had forbidden him from going back to his own room, not that he had objected to that. Both times, the sex had been fiery, almost aggressive in nature, which he had soon learned was how Lucy liked it. He could feel the painful nail scratches she had left on his back, which were evidence enough to prove the point.

"I guess it's the morning after pill for me then," he heard Lucy say behind him in a sleepy voice.

Rolling over to face her, Seth smiled. "How long have you been awake?"

"A few minutes. I think I just woke you up. It must be quite early; my alarm hasn't gone off yet, and I have it set for six." Lucy rolled over and picked up her phone, groaning when she saw the time. "One minute to six. Can you believe it?" She turned off the alarm then rolled back over to face Seth.

He kissed her softly on the lips. "A good morning kiss, then."

"Very gentlemanly," Lucy smiled.

"That's what I'm all about," Seth said, kissing her again.

Lucy gave him a kiss of her own, taking a little nip at his bottom lip as she did so. "That's not quite how I remember last night."

"Hey, you were the rough one," Seth pretended to object.

Lucky chuckled. "Sorry. Was I too much for you?"

"Not even close," Seth assured her.

Abruptly, Lucy rolled over again and sat up on the edge of the bed. She pulled her case over towards her and started to unpack a change of clothes. "Yeah, well, I guess it's time for me to shower. We've got a busy day ahead of us."

"Uh, Lucy?" Seth asked, wondering if she really was that keen to part herself from him, or if she was playing with him again.

"Yeah?" she asked, not turning to look at him.

"What does this, uh, where do we go from here?"

Knowing that Seth couldn't see her face, Lucy allowed herself a grin. She was going to string him along for a minute, making it even less likely that he would expect the invite he was soon going to get. "I imagine you go and find Roman and Dean, and tell them what an alpha male you are because you spent all night shagging Lucy Thorne," she said, making it sound like an accusation.

"I wouldn't do that," Seth objected strongly, sitting up. He was taken aback by her tone. "Why would you say that?"

"Whatever," Lucy said dismissively. "I'm going for a shower, like I said." She picked up the clothes she had selected from her case and walked over to the bathroom door, leaving Seth sitting on the bed, looking stunned by the way she had suddenly turned on him after such a wonderful night together. Only when she reached the bathroom door and turned back to look at him did Seth see her smiling and realise that she'd gotten him good that time.

"Are you coming with me or not?" she asked, back in her normal voice.

"Don't do that shit," Seth chuckled with relief, launching a pillow in her direction, which she had to sway out of the way of.

Lucy had enjoyed winding him up, but she very much wanted him to join her in the shower. "If I promise to be a good girl, will you come in the shower with me?"

Seth got off the bed and walked over to her, wearing only his boxers. "If you promised to be a good girl, I'd know you were bullshitting me. But yeah, I'll come in the shower with you."

"I can be a good girl when I want to," Lucy sulked as she lead the way into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

"Yeah, you just never want to," Seth quipped.

Putting her clothes down on top of the closed toilet lid, Lucy said, "You wouldn't want me if I was a good girl, anyway."

"You're probably right about that," Seth grinned broadly, removing his boxers and tossing them aside. He climbed into the bathtub without waiting for Lucy to do first. He was pleased to find that she had the water set nice and hot, and he let it spray directly onto his face, washing away the last traces of sleep.

"Oh, did I do this?" she purred when she joining him under the water a moment later, standing behind him and touching the raw nail scars on his back.

Seth loved the feel of her soft hands on his skin. "Nah, that was Dean last night, before I came up here," he chuckled.

"Eww," Lucy groaned, as she began to massage his tight shoulder muscles. "Not an image I want to be thinking about right now."

"Threesomes are out, then?" Seth asked, desperately trying not to burst out laughing.

"Yes, threesomes are out," Lucy said dryly.

Much as he was enjoying the impromptu massage, Seth turned around to face her, watching the water running down her body. "I'll have to make do with it just being the two of us then," he said. Leaning down slightly, he began to kiss her neck as his fingers started to work their magic on her. Her cries of ecstasy were soon filling the room as she responded to his touch.

"I've had worse showers," Lucy said after it was over, as they were both toweling themselves down.

"Me too," Seth assured her. There was something more serious that he had to say. "Lucy, I think we should keep this to ourselves for a while. We're not exactly in the kind of business where people are shy of gossiping. I don't want us to be the talk of the locker room."

"Neither do I," Lucy said, shuddering at the thought of what people like Sasha Banks would say behind her back if they found out she had slept with Seth, just a few days after joining The Shield. "You're going to have to get dressed and go down for breakfast. I'll follow you in a few minutes. And not a word to Roman or Dean. I don't give a fuck if you trust them, they're my new teammates and I don't want them to know. Not yet, anyway."

"Okay," Seth agreed.

Clearly not thinking he sounded sincere enough, Lucy fixed him with a stern expression. "I mean it, Seth. I don't want you to tell them."

"I won't," he promised, making sure to be more convincing about it this time. "This won't just be a one-off thing though, will it? I want it to be more than that."

Finished with drying herself off, Lucy wrapped her towel around her body, reminding Seth of when she had opened the door to him the night before. She walked up to him and spoke in a sultry tone. "I want it to be more than that too, but it'll depend how secretive we can be about it. I'm not having everyone gossiping about us and talking about me like I'm some kind of tart."

"I can be the most secretive person in the world, and you're not a tart," Seth said, giving her a peck on the lips, feeling awkward using the strange, very English choice of word. It seemed like that English words and phrases were going to be something he would have to try and get used to.

Lucy grinned, then gave him a push towards the door. "Good, then secret your ass out of here. I'll see you downstairs."

"Yes, boss," Seth said sarcastically, just before the bathroom door closed behind him.

A couple of minutes later, he was dressed and heading back up to his own room to get changed into some fresh clothes. As he was waiting for an elevator, he had the image in his head of the doors opening to reveal Roman and Dean standing there, ready to ask, "So, where have you been?"

Thankfully, the elevator that arrived for him was empty, and he was able to get back to his room unnoticed by any familiar faces. He knew, however, that keeping whatever this thing between him and Lucy was a secret wasn't going to be easy. In a way, that would make it even more fun.


	13. Chapter 13

When Seth walked into the restaurant for breakfast, he saw that he was actually the last of the Shield group to arrive. Lucy had beaten him down there, and Roman and Dean were already halfway through their meals. He guessed that he must have spent longer than he had realised getting changed and packing his case ready for when it came time to leave. After piling the items he wanted onto a tray, he walked over to the table where they were sitting. Seeing Lucy chatting away to the guys, he was glad that they had made an agreement to keep quiet about their night together. He reminded himself to act like he hadn't seen her since they had parted ways at the reception desk after checking into the hotel the previous evening.

"Morning," he greeted everyone at the table as he sat down next to Dean.

"The wanderer returns," Dean said. "Where did you disappear to last night? I had to resort to taking all of Roman's money off him instead."

"Yeah, right," Roman said dryly. "I seem to remember coming out well ahead of where I started."

"I thought you said all three of you were going to play poker?" Lucy asked. Even Seth couldn't have picked up a hint that she knew more than she was letting on.

"So did I," Dean said, feigning an accusing tone at Seth.

Thinking on his feet, Seth came up with an excuse that he was reasonably happy with. "I had to call home. I kind of had a fight with my mom on the phone the other day over something stupid, and I wanted to call her a put it behind us."

"How did that go?" Roman asked after swallowing a mouthful of ham.

"Fine," Seth said. "I knew it would, I just wanted to get it out of the way. You know how stupid things like that can play on your mind."

Dean looked up from the pancake he was working on to make eye contact with Lucy, who was sitting opposite him. "What about you? What were you doing that was better than our company?"

Sipping from her cup of coffee, Lucy said, "The last thing you want is me playing poker with you, Dean. It's the one card game I actually know how to play, and I'd wipe the floor with all three of you."

"Keep dreaming," Seth said. "These two can tell you, if they're honest, that I'm the best poker player they know."

"Maybe, but they've never played with me yet, have they?" Lucy fired back with a grin.

"You didn't answer the question," Dean noted, still looking at her.

For a second, Lucy wondered if he was already onto the fact that there was more going on than he was being told. "Nothing. That's what I was doing," she said simply. "I went up to my room, took a shower, then I went to bed. I was fucked."

"We've got a fucking lightweight on the team," Dean said deadpan, obviously believing her story.

With her concerns about being caught out dispelled, Lucy said, "I'll tell you what. I've still got to come through on the night I promised to pay for. How about Monday night after Raw we have a poker night in my room? I'll take all your money off you and use it to pay for the drinks."

"You're on," Dean accepted for the group.

With that, Roman changed the subject. Lucy and Seth were in the clear after their first night together.

* * *

Soon after proposing the poker night after Raw, Lucy had made the decision that she would not spend another night with Seth until then. She realised that if they rushed into spending every night together right from the start, they would be busted before they knew it. There was no way they could avoid Roman and Dean's company every night without them asking a lot more questions; questions that wouldn't have answers. Hell, asking questions wouldn't even be necessary; it would be blatantly obvious to them what was going on. To spice things up a bit, she had decided not to let Seth in on her line of thinking, hoping that being denied any intimate contact with her would be driving him crazy with desire. Controlling her own hunger for him was hard enough, but it was all going to be worth it when the payoff came, she had told herself.

It was backstage before Raw when Seth finally cracked, choosing to confront Lucy, intent on finding out why she had done everything she could to avoid spending time alone with him since their night together. The previous night, he had been tempted to repeat his trick of finding out her room number and showing up at the door, but it hadn't felt right this time. She had told him the morning after they had slept with each other, in vague terms, that she wanted to be with him, but since then he had gotten nothing from her at all. By Monday, enough was enough.

As usual, Lucy had been spending time in The Shield's locker room. Even seeing her in her Shield attire was driving Seth wild by this point. When she made her excuses to head to the bathroom, Seth decided to leave it a minute or so after she had left the room and follow her example. "I need a piss as well," he told them when he was happy with the gap he had left to avoid making it seem like he was following Lucy out of the room.

"Have one for me," Dean said, lounging against the wall in the corner of the room.

The truth was that Seth didn't need to visit the bathroom at all. What he wanted to do was confront Lucy without the other two being around. He made his way to where the bathrooms were and took up a position a few yards away, leaning against the wall. There was no way Lucy could get back to the locker room without walking past him.

"Really?" Lucy asked when she walked out of the bathroom a couple of minutes later and saw him waiting there. "Stalking me outside the toilets?"

Glancing around to make sure no one was in earshot, Seth said, "We need to talk. You've been avoiding spending any time with me. Why?"

Lucy rolled her eyes and pushed the nearest door open. It turned out to be a small, empty conference room. She waited until Seth had followed her inside and closed the door before speaking. "Because I don't want us to get busted," she told him in a heated whisper. "I told you I don't want anyone to know something's going on between us."

"Nothing is going on between us, that's the problem," Seth said, exasperated. "You said you wanted there to be something between us."

"I do," Lucy assured him more gently, wondering if she had screwed up and overplayed her hand. "But I figured we can't just stop spending time with Roman and Dean every night. How long do you think it would take them to figure it out then? We might as well take out a fucking advertisement. 'Seth and Lucy are shagging each other!' I wonder how well that would go down backstage?"

"Alright, maybe you have a point," Seth conceded. "So we can't be together every night. That's fair enough, but when _are_ we going to be together?"

"You want me really bad, huh?" Lucy teased.

"Look, stop playing games," Seth said, approaching the end of his rope. "I'm not into that kind of thing. If you want this, great. If not..."

"Alright, I'm sorry," Lucy cut in. "I'll stop playing with you. I was going to find a moment to say to you I wanted you to spend the night with me tonight anyway."

"Were you really, or are you just saying that now?" Seth demanded.

"Of course I'm not just saying it now," Lucy bristled. "Don't start throwing stupid accusations at me. I want you to stay behind after Roman and Dean leave, and I want you to fuck me all night long. Happy now, arsehole?"

"That's a smart mouth you've got there," Seth said, feeling his desire close to bubbling over. Taking the initiative, he pushed her back up against the wall and began kissing her forcefully.

Groaning with pleasure, Lucy returned his kiss, wishing that they could have sex right then and there. Sadly, there was always a risk that someone else could come blundering into the office. No, it would have to wait until later in the night. "Seth, not now," she managed to say, forcing him off her for a moment.

"I want you so bad," he breathed heavily, after another kiss.

"I want you too," she gasped, feeling like she was on fire for him. Denying herself was so hard, but it was necessary. "But we can't do it here. Someone might walk in."

"You're right," Seth admitted, frustrated beyond belief. "Damn, I think this is the first show I ever wanted to be over before it got started."

Lucy looked up at him and bit her bottom lip seductively. "Good things come to those who wait, Mr Rollins."

"I'll hold you to that promise," Seth said, backing away from her with a sigh. "Come on then, we'd better get out of here."

Lucy giggled. "What if someone sees us leave together? Someone might be walking out of the bathrooms when we come out."

"You're right," Seth realised, grinning. "I'll go first, then. You leave it a couple of minutes, then follow me."

"Yes, sir," Lucy said, giving him a formal salute. "Any more orders, sir?"

Seth shook his head as he put his hand on the door handle. "What am I going to do with you?"

"I can't wait to find out," Lucy purred.

* * *

A few minutes later, after they had both made a successful escape from the conference room, Lucy rejoined the guys in The Shield's locker room. Acting as if nothing had happened while she been away, she made conversation as she walked into the room and re-took her seat on the bench. "So, I've been thinking about some of the things you guys have said to me about my character, particularly you, Seth. I think you're right that being pushed too hard is one of the main reasons the fans keep booing me. I might go and see Vince and Steph in a minute and see if I can have a sit down with them. It would be better for everyone if I put other people over a bit more often. I'll put it to them and see what they say."

"I think that's a good idea," Roman said, looking up from his phone, which seemed to be ever-present in his hand while they were in the locker room. "If they want us to continue to be a face team, they need to do something to try and get you the right reaction. This whole thing with The Authority might end up being a mess if the reactions keep on being all over the place."

"I never understood why we were supposed to be a face team all of a sudden anyway," Dean complained in the corner. "We've never been a face team. People cheered us because we're good wrestlers and they liked what we were doing in the ring, not because we were faces."

"That's what I thought when they turned you," Lucy said enthusiastically. "I remember saying that to the girls on my first night back as well. None of it makes any sense."

"That's Vince for you," Seth said. "There never seems to be any kind of logic or forward planning involved anymore. I mean, I'd make a bet that they have no idea what to do about having a woman as part of The Shield after Wrestlemania, once we're done with The Authority. Guys, we probably should have questioned that at the time," he said to Roman and Dean.

"I'd have thought we'd have the inside track now, honestly," Dean said, pointedly looking at Lucy.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" she demanded.

"You're the golden girl," Dean said, simply stating a fact rather than having a dig at her. "Surely you can talk to Vince or Steph and find out more than we could about what they're planning, if they're even planning anything. Shit, you could probably get them to change their minds about whatever it is. Why don't you tell them we want to move away from this dumb idea of The Shield being faces?"

"I could try," Lucy said thoughtfully, glad that her new teammate was willing to rely on her for something important. That was some kind of progress. "Roman, Seth, do you think it's a good idea? Do you want me to ask about turning us heel?"

"Yeah," Roman said as Seth nodded. "Vince still has a thing about you being a face though, even though everyone boos you. I mean..." he faltered, realising what he had said and that it might have offended her.

"It's okay," Lucy quickly said, smiling. "I'd actually like playing a heel more; I've just never been asked. I think a heel character is more like my natural personality."

"No shit," Seth mumbled, knowing that she would see the gleam in his eyes when she looked at him.

"That's enough out of you," Lucy said dryly, standing up and heading for the door. "Okay guys, I'll go and do your dirty work for you, you just sit here with your thumbs up your arses. I'll see if I can have a sit down with them now then, before everything starts getting too busy."

Dean blew out a sigh when the door closed behind her. "There's something about a good looking chick with an attitude and a smart mouth. If I wasn't with Renee..." He let his voice trail off, the implication perfectly clear.

Roman chuckled, attention back on his phone already. Seth said nothing, thinking that he knew exactly what Dean meant. For the first time, a Shield poker night was going to drag like crazy. It was what was going to come afterwards that he was waiting for.


	14. Chapter 14

It took Lucy a few minutes to locate Vince and Stephanie, eventually finding them in the production office. When Lucy entered the room, she saw that the Chairman was busy giving some kind of lecture to a group of crew members, but Stephanie was standing off to one side, looking at something on her phone. Hunter was nowhere to be seen, presumably off attending to some other important business.

"Hey, Steph," Lucy said as she walked over to her.

Stephanie looked up from her phone and smiled, quickly putting the device in her pocket. "Lucy, hi," she said warmly. "How are you?"

"I'm not bad. You?" Lucy asked.

"I'm doing good. It's strange seeing you in here. Is there something I can do for you?"

Lucy glanced over at Vince, who was still in full flow with his lecture about whatever issue had occurred. "I was hoping to have a sit down with you and Vince, if you have time. I'd like to talk about my character and how I'm being booked. I have, uh, concerns, I guess you could say."

"Concerns?" Stephanie asked, concern appearing on her own face at the prospect of the woman she had hand-picked for a top spot on the roster not being happy with how things were going. "I put quite a bit of pressure on my dad to make sure you got the role on The Shield. You said you were happy with it when we asked you," she reminded Lucy, sounding a little offended that her efforts seemed not have been appreciated.

"I know you did, and I appreciate it a lot," Lucy said, placating Stephanie. Friends wasn't exactly how Lucy would have chosen to describe their relationship, but they did get along very well, having an excellent working relationship, and a lot of mutual respect. The last thing she wanted to do was cause offense to the woman who had been instrumental in both her signing for WWE and the push she had gotten since doing so.

"So what's the problem?" Stephanie asked.

"I don't have a problem being a part of The Shield," Lucy assured her, before looking across the room at Vince again, who seemed to be bringing his conversation to a close. "Look, can we go and sit down in an office or something? There are a couple of things I want to ask, if I can."

"Sure, just give me a second," Stephanie agreed easily. Lucy watched as she walked over to her father and said something to him. Lucy couldn't hear the words that were exchanged, but she saw Vince look over at her and then nod to his daughter, obviously agreeing to the chat that was being requested. After dismissing the crew members he had been talking to, he walked over to where Lucy was patiently waiting, Stephanie by his side.

"Hello, Lucy," Vince greeted her gruffly, as was his manner. "I hear you want to talk about your character?"

"Please," Lucy said politely. "I have a couple of concerns to bring up, for want of a better word."

"Let's go and talk in my office," Vince said, turning and leading the way.

A couple of minutes later, they were in the Chairman's office. Stephanie had perched herself on the edge of his desk, with Vince standing beside her. Lucy stood opposite them, trying her best to feel at ease. She was confident about a lot of things in life, but this kind of thing was not high on the list.

"So, how have you found your first week as a part of The Shield?" Vince asked to begin the discussion, gesturing to the ring attire she was wearing, minus the body armour and gloves which had been left behind in the locker room.

"I'm enjoying it," Lucy said honestly. "We got off to a bit of a rocky start, but the guys are growing on me. I think they'd tell you the same about me, if you asked them. I want to be clear that I didn't come in here to complain about being on the team or about how the guys have been treating me; far from it. I actually think it could be a very good thing for all four of us."

"That's good," Stephanie beamed, now that her previous concerns had been addressed.

"So what did you want to talk about?" Vince asked, keen to get to point.

"Well, all four of us have been talking about what's going on with our characters and the booking of the team, and, to be quite honest, none of us understand why The Shield are a face team. We don't think it makes sense. I mean, for a start, let's be honest, it's pretty obvious at this point that I'm going to get booed no matter what I do. It's the in thing for the fans to do now. Wouldn't it be better to make me a heel so that I'm at least getting the right response when I go out there?"

Vince looked genuinely surprised by what she had said. "Lucy, you're our top face character in the women's division, you know that. Turning you heel would be a huge and drastic step to take. And people like The Shield as a face team, they get cheered like crazy night after night."

"Yeah, but that's because they're good wrestlers," Lucy countered patiently. "None of us think booking us as a face team makes sense, and we'd like to ask you to consider turning us heel after we've finished this run against The Authority."

Vince said nothing. Lucy could tell that he was considering what she had said, but he obviously wasn't keen on the idea at all. She got the impression that if it wasn't her that was asking, he would have dismissed the idea point blank, telling her to focus on doing what she was told. Luckily, thanks to her relationship with Stephanie, she was granted more leeway than a lot of people.

"This is what Hunter was talking about," Stephanie said to her father, taking Lucy by surprise. She didn't know exactly what that was supposed to mean, but something had clearly been going on behind the scenes.

"Yes, and we agreed on a decision at the end of that meeting," Vince replied, an sharp edge to his tone.

"I know, but Hunter and I both made our opinions pretty clear," Stephanie pointed out. "It seems like Lucy and the guys are thinking along the same lines as we were."

Vince took a deep breath, then turned to Lucy. "Lucy, step outside and give us a minute. We need to get Hunter in here."

"Uh, sure," Lucy said cautiously, wondering what hornet's nest she had just inadvertently kicked over. She walked out of the office and took a seat on top of a large equipment case in the hallway, thinking back to times when she had gotten into trouble at school and ended up having to wait outside the headmaster's office.

Some of the most awkward minutes of her life dragged by before Hunter came walking briskly along the hallway towards her, presumably having received a phone call from either Vince or Stephanie. During her time on NXT, Lucy had been able to tell that Hunter hadn't exactly been overly happy with the pressure that was put on him by his wife and his father-in-law to push her harder than any of the other women. Even so, Hunter had never been impolite or hostile towards her in any way. Cordial was the word she would probably have chosen to describe their relationship, if asked to do so.

"Lucy," he nodded on his way past.

"Hello, Hunter," she replied with an awkward smile, still trying to figure out what was about to go down in the office. It was obvious that there had been some kind of disagreement regarding creative plans either for her, or for The Shield as a whole. Vince seemed to have had a different opinion to Hunter and Stephanie, and seemed to have won the day whenever the discussion had taken place. She guessed that Hunter had suggested turning The Shield heel and Vince had been against the idea. That seemed logical from her point of view, given Vince's unwavering insistence in the past that she had to be considered the company's top face, at least as far as the women were concerned.

More time crawled by. Never the most patient of people, Lucy considered heading back to the locker room. However, something was telling her that this was not the time to push her luck with the bosses. Something big might be about to happen, one way or the other.

When the door to Vince's office eventually opened, Stephanie appeared. "Lucy, can you come back in, please?"

"Steph, I didn't mean to cause an argument or anything," Lucy felt compelled to say as she dropped down off the equipment case and walked over to the office.

"It's okay," Stephanie said with a reassuring smile. "There was just a bit of a difference of opinion is all. Come in and have a seat."

Lucy walked back into the office and found Vince and Hunter sitting on the two couches that were always arranged in the Chairman's luxurious office. Assuming that Stephanie would want to sit next to her husband, Lucy took the seat next to Vince.

"Hunter, you might as well go through it. It's your idea after all," Vince said, sounding a little sore, which told Lucy that his mind had just been changed on whatever had been discussed.

"Okay," Hunter said evenly, leaning forward and resting his arms on his legs. "Lucy, from what I understand, you came in here and asked to talk about turning The Shield heel, including yourself, obviously."

"That's right," Lucy nodded. "The guys and I have been talking about it and we all think it makes a lot more sense for us to be a heel team. We don't think the Shield gimmick really works for faces, if you know what I mean?"

"I do know what you mean," Hunter said. "And I also agree with you on the point you raised about the fans insistence on booing you. It seems like it's going to be very difficult, if not impossible to turn that around at this point. Please don't take that as me having a dig at you for your work; that's not what this is about," he added quickly.

"It's okay," Lucy said. "I'm taking it from the way this has gone that you guys have already talked about turning The Shield heel, right?"

Lucy noticed Stephanie smiling as Hunter said, "That's right. I put the case forward that it could be hugely beneficial for you personally if you were to turn heel, even before the idea of you becoming a part of The Shield was on the table."

"Let's get to talking about the angle we're going with," Vince suggested impatiently, looking at his watch to emphasise his point. Lucy could sense the tension in the room, and found herself wishing that Vince would just leave, not that she would have dreamed of saying as much.

"It's a fairly ambitious idea," Hunter began, sitting back on the couch as he relaxed into the conversation. "We're talking about an angle that involves turning The Shield heel and turning The Authority face at the same time."

"Really?" Lucy asked, raising her eyebrows in surprise. "That is ambitious. How would we pull that off? Obviously I mean no offense here, but everyone hates you and Stephanie."

Stephanie chuckled. "Yes they do. But we think we can change that with this angle. Time is tight, so let us take you through it in broad terms for now, so you can see where we're thinking of going with it."

"As you already know," Hunter said, taking over again, "The Shield are going to be working as faces against The Authority until Wrestlemania. What you didn't know yet is, we're going to have a four on four tag team match, with the added stipulation that if The Shield lose, all four of you will be fired. People will think that's basically a spoiler that you're going to win, but actually you won't. You'll lose."

"That's interesting," Lucy said, meaning it. "What happens after that? Obviously, we don't just disappear," she grinned.

"No, you don't," Hunter answered with a smile of his own. "What happens is, sometime before Raw goes on air the next night, it comes to light that Steph has been kidnapped by The Shield. We need to put some thought into the exact details of how that will come out, but we're just talking in basic terms for now. So, Steph is kidnapped by The Shield, and on Raw we'll see you, Lucy, holding her hostage somewhere."

"Sounds awesome," Lucy said, even though Hunter didn't break his stride.

"I'll come out to the ring," he went on, "demanding that she's released immediately. Dean, Seth and Roman will then come out, carrying a document that they say they want signing in return for Steph to be released unharmed. The commentators will assume that this document must be something that guarantees none of The Shield will be fired, saying that they can't condone kidnapping someone, but they can understand why it might have seemed to The Shield like it was necessary to do it."

By now, Lucy was on the hook. "So what does the document really say?" she asked eagerly. She was surprised when it was Vince who answered, apparently recovering from his sulk.

"It actually say that Hunter gives up all rights and privileges as COO. I will have shown up on the Raw after Wrestlemania, supposedly concerned for Stephanie's safety. The document will end up being handed to me in the ring, which is when the heel turn for your team will begin. I'll announce that The Shield have been working for me for months, and that I was the one who added Lucy Thorne to the team. It will then be apparent that I effectively had my own daughter kidnapped so that I could get Hunter out of the picture and seize absolute control of WWE."

"Oh, wow," Lucy breathed, knowing what a huge deal it was for Vince to be working a proper angle for the first time in years.

"It'll probably take a while for the double turn to take effect," Vince went on as if he hadn't heard her say anything. "As you've already said, it's not exactly going to be easy to get people to sympathise with The Authority after everything that's happened over the past few years, but we can always aid the process by having other popular faces like Bayley ally with them, and have heels align with our team."

Lucy was tempted to ask why the hell Vince had been against an idea as great as this in the first place, but she figured she already knew the answer to that: It wasn't his idea. The whole disagreement was an ego issue, when all was said and done. Hunter had come up with something great, and Vince didn't like it. Thankfully, common sense seemed to have prevailed.

They chatted about the idea for five more minutes, then Vince said, "I assume you'll be happy to go and tell your teammates what we've discussed here?"

"Yeah, no problem," Lucy said. She could tell that Vince was trying to bring the meeting to a close, so she had to get in quick with the other point she wanted to bring up. "Before we go, there was something else I wanted to talk about. I know you'll agree with me on this, Hunter, because you already talked to me about it when I was working with you on NXT."

"Oh?" Hunter inquired.

"I've taken some advice on-board from some of the other women, and from the Shield guys. People are pointing out that one of the reasons the fans don't like me is that my matches are always pretty one-sided. I squash a lot of the people I wrestle. I think it would benefit everyone if I took some more punishment in my matches. It would make other people look a bit better, you know?"

"But that doesn't fit in with the image we've created for you," Vince objected. "It makes even less sense if we turn you heel. You'll be the beast of The Shield, the one every other woman is terrified of."

Not wanting to push her luck, Lucy decided to say, "Well, let me try it out until Wrestlemania then, while I'm a face. I'd like to be able to make some of the other girls look good when they wrestle me. Look at Emma, for example. She's trying to make her way as a heel. A match where she gave me a serious beating could be huge for her, even if she didn't actually win it."

"I think that makes a lot of sense," Hunter said, trying to be gentle with his father-in-law.

"Fine," Vince conceded irritably. "We'll see how it goes until Wrestlemania. Now, if you don't mind, I've got a lot of other things I need to deal with."

Lucy thanked the boss and headed for the door, with Hunter and Stephanie not far behind. When they were outside, Hunter made his excuses and went back to doing whatever he'd been interrupted from to come to the impromptu meeting.

"I'm sorry if I caused an argument or something," Lucy said to Stephanie once it was just the two of them standing in the hallway. "I hope I didn't burn any bridges with Vince by bringing this up. He has always tried to look out for me."

"Don't be stupid," Stephanie smiled. "It's not your fault, and you didn't burn any bridges. We've been having differing opinions over how to book you for a while, since the fans have insisted on booing you. To be quite honest with you, it was music to my ears when you walked into the office and asked to turn heel. I think you're going to make a seriously awesome bad guy. You've done such a great job since you signed for us, but this could take you to an even higher level."

"Thanks, Steph," Lucy said, enjoying the glowing praise. "And it all starts by kidnapping you, apparently. That should be fun."

"For you at least," Stephanie grinned. "I can't say it's an experience I'm particularly looking forward to, but I'm happy to do it for this angle. I don't want to hold anything back in getting you over as a heel."

"I appreciate that," Lucy said warmly. "Honestly, I wish it was Wrestlemania already, so that we could get started on this."

"I don't think the writers would agree with you. There's going to be a lot of fine tuning for them to do now that dad's going to give them the go ahead on this thing. Anyway, I'll let you get back. I'm glad we're all agreed on how to move forward."

"Yeah, thanks, Steph," Lucy said. "It means a lot that you're always willing to go in to bat with Vince for me. I'll head back to the locker room now and tell the guys all about it. I'm sure they'll love the idea as much as I do."

They said their goodbyes, and Lucy started to make her way back to the locker room. As she walked, she tried to run over everything she had been told again in her head. She had hoped, at best, to go back to the guys having secured an agreement that the team would be allowed to turn heel at some point, and here she was with an almost fully-fledged idea to report back. Telling them would be fun.

Then a better idea dawned on her. She would insist on making them wait until the poker night before telling them what had been discussed. Smiling to herself, she considered that some good news would lighten the blow they got from losing all of their money to her.


	15. Chapter 15

Poker night brought with it three priorities for Lucy: Tell the guys about her meeting with Vince, win some money, and tease Seth with the thought of what was to come after Roman and Dean went back to their rooms.   
  
That list belonged in reverse order, she thought with a smile. The sex was priority number one. With that in mind, she had chosen to wear a top that showed plenty of cleavage without making her look like slut, and tight fitting denim shorts that she was sure would have Seth staring at her ass whenever the chance presented itself.   
  
True to her word, she had purchase a case of beers when they had stopped off on the way back to the hotel. Getting properly wrecked wasn't an option when there was a show to work the next day, but there was nothing wrong with having a few beers each to aid the night's entertainment.   
  
Although she chose not to drink often, Lucy had no problem putting the beers away with the best of them when she did choose to let her hair down. Tonight though, she intended to try and stay focused on the cards. The guys seemed to think the idea of a woman beating them at poker was far-fetched. She hoped to prove them wrong.   
  
"Good," she said to herself, happy with the way she had arranged the table and chairs in the middle of the room. Rearranging a hotel room was not the easiest task in the world, given the limited space there was to work with.   
  
Checking her watch, she saw that the guys would be arriving any minute. Almost as soon as she had processed that thought, there was a knock on the door.   
  
"Hey, come in," Lucy said when she opened the door, finding Dean waiting outside.   
  
"Awesome," Dean said, looking her up and down. "Lucy ordered hookers for poker night."   
  
Lucy laughed loudly, taken aback for a moment by his offensive joke. Not one to take offense, she was actually glad that he felt comfortable enough with her to actually say something like that.   
  
"Keep talking like that, Dean, and I'll end up glassing you before the night's over."   
  
Dean grinned as he walked into the room, apparently admiring her reaction to his comment. "No sign of Roman or Seth?" he asked, walking over to the table and picking up a bottle of beer. He used the edge of the table to crack the top off of it.   
  
"Yeah, Roman's the invisible guy sitting over there," Lucy said with heavy sarcasm of her own. "Are you going to open a bottle for me?"   
  
"Here, have this one," Dean said, handing her the bottle he had just opened. He opened another for himself, then said, "So, you any good at poker? We're not going to have to spend an hour teaching you the rules, are we?"   
  
"I'm sure I already told you I could play," Lucy said in overly-tolerant tone. Before she could think of a witty jibe to fire back at him, there was another knock on the door. Lucy walked over and opened it.   
  
This time, Roman was outside in the hallway. She saw that he had a small metal case in his hand. The images on the case told her that it contained a cheap set of plastic poker chips and a deck of cards. At least that solved the problem that had been on her mind, trying to figure out exactly how they were going to play for cash when no one would have any coins or many lower denomination notes.   
  
"Hi," Roman said, smiling pleasantly. If there was a gentleman in the group, it was Roman.   
  
"What's up, big fella?" Lucy greeted him. "Come in, before I give Dean a slap."   
  
"Don't tell me you've been arguing already?" Roman chuckled as he entered the room. He walked over to the table and put the poker set down on it.   
  
"All I did was ask if she knew how to play," Dean grinned, cracking open another bottle for Roman. “Touchy subject, obviously.”   
  
"We'll find out soon enough," Roman said, eyeing Lucy like a true competitor. "Looks like a fish to me," he decided, using poker terminology for a clueless player who was ripe for the taking.   
  
Lucy realised he was probably hoping she would do something really dumb like ask what a fish was. Unfortunately for him, she knew the term. "You know what they say," she said after taking a drink from her bottle of beer. "If you can't see who the fish at the table is, it's you. I guess we'll see when we get down to business. A word of warning, though. I'm not a good loser."   
  
Roman laughed. "Why does that not surprise me?"   
  
"How much are we going to play for?" Lucy asked next.   
  
"Two hundred?" Dean suggested. "Better not go crazy with a newbie at the table. We don't want to ruin you."   
  
"I'm going to enjoy beating this arsehole," Lucy said, shaking her head.   
  
"Let's set the table up," Roman suggested, opening up the metal case. "Who knows, Seth might even join us at some point."   
  
Lucy and Dean helped Roman arrange an equal stack of chips in front of each seat at the table. By the time that was done, Dean had finished his first bottle of beer. Noticing that Lucy had barely made a start on hers, he said, "I thought you'd at least make an effort to keep up."   
  
Being constantly needled by Dean actually made Lucy want to smile. It showed her that she was being properly accepted into the group and treated like 'one of the guys.' Raising an eyebrow, she said, "I'm intending to pay more attention to the cards than the beer. Maybe you should do the same?”   
  
Another knock came on the door, signalling Seth's arrival. It was a moment Lucy had been looking forward to all evening, wanting to see how he reacted when he saw the way she was dressed.   
  
"Seth, hi," she smiled when she opened the door. She had to fight the urge to kiss him. It was almost unfair how hot he was.   
  
"Uh, hi," Seth faltered as he took in the revealing outfit she had on. Despite his best intentions, his mind was already in the gutter, thinking about what was to come after the poker game.   
  
In the room, unnoticed by either Seth or Lucy as they stood talking for a minute in the doorway, Dean gave Roman a nudge and gestured towards the two of them with his head. "Tell me you're seeing what I'm seeing?" he said under his breath.   
  
Roman had to stifle a laugh before muttering back, "Look at the dirty bastard. He's practically drooling on her."   
  
"Now we know why she dressed like that," Dean said, grinning. "She wants her some Seth. Hey, do you think... the other night..."   
  
The thought had to go unfinished because Seth had closed the door and was leading Lucy over to the table. Roman and Dean did a good job of pretending like they hadn't noticed anything, but they shared a knowing look that nearly made Dean laugh.   
  
"On the beers already, guys?" Seth asked by way of greeting his two best friends.   
  
"We had to do something to kill the time while we waited for your ass," Dean said, taking what he had decided would be his seat for the night.   
  
"This is my third one," Lucy lied after taking a drink from her bottle.   
  
"You'd be under the table by now if it was," Roman quipped.   
  
"Cheeky arsehole," Lucy said, pretending to glare at him as Seth laughed.   
  
Dean clapped his hands together loudly. "Handbags away, ladies. Get the cards shuffled and let's go."   
  
Roman picked up the deck of cards and plonked it down in front of Dean. "Shuffle yourself, sitting there giving orders out."   
  
Seeing Seth taking a seat, Lucy chose to sit opposite him, next to Dean, deciding that she might as well have the eye candy to look at. After she sat down, she turned to Dean and said, "I'd better not catch you trying to peak at my cards."   
  
"It's up to you if you let me see them," Dean shrugged, shuffling the cards without needing to pay any attention to the task.   
  
Seth cracked open a bottle of beer for himself and asked, "How much are we playing for?"   
  
"Two hundred each," Roman told him, pulling a wallet out of his pocket. He put four fifty dollar bills down on the table. The others coughed up their money, and the game was ready to begin. 

 

Dean dealt the first hand. Sitting to the left of the dealer made Lucy first to act on hand number one. She looked at her two cards and she saw that they were junk. "Start as you mean to go on, dealing me crap," she said to Dean as she slid the cards away.   
  
The action passed to Seth, who threw in some chips to make a bet.   
  
"So, Lucy," Roman said as he checked his cards and called Seth's bet. "Are you going to tell us what happened tonight now?"   
  
Lucy purposely took a moment to drink some beer, then looked at him. "I'm surprised you didn't watch. I had a squash match against Dana Brooke. I tried to make her look as good as I could, but it's Dana. There's only so much you can do, you know?"   
  
Roman sighed and shook his head as Dean folded his own hand, then dealt the first three community cards for Roman and Seth. "You know that's not what I meant. I was asking you about the meeting with Vince and Stephanie."   
  
"Oh, that!" Lucy exclaimed, as if it had completely slipped her mind. "I forgot you wanted to know about that."   
  
"How has no one killed you before now?" Dean asked, deadpan.   
  
"There's a line forming," Lucy said with a beaming smile. "I think Sasha Banks is at the front. Problem is, she knows I'd kill her first if she came at me."   
  
"Tell us about the meeting," Seth encouraged, placing some more chips in the middle of the table.   
  
Lucy relented, deciding not to wind them up any more. After all, she had already kept them waiting several hours since she had gotten back to the locker room after the meeting and steadfastly refused to discuss what had been said.   
  
"It turned out that they had already been talking about whether we should be a face team or not," she began, leaning back in her chair and nursing her beer. "I thought I'd kicked an argument off when I went in there and Vince and Steph started getting a bit heated with each other over it. The next thing I know, I'm sitting outside and they've got Hunter in there. I had to wait for quite a bit while they beat each other up over it or something, then they called me back in. The upshot of it all is, they agreed to turn us heel after Wrestlemania. Actually, they want to do a double turn with us and The Authority."   
  
"Seriously? You're not bullshitting now?" Dean asked, plainly a lot less than impressed with the news, which surprised Lucy.   
  
"No, straight up, that's what they said," she assured him. "They're going to put a stip on our match at Wrestlemania that if we lose, we get fired. We'll lose, but then it will come out that I've somehow managed to kidnap Steph after the show. The next night, you guys will hand Hunter a document to sign in return for her safe release. The document will say something about Hunter handing over all his rights and privileges as COO to Vince, which is when it will come out that The Shield have been working for him for months, and he was the one who put me on the team. Needless to say, we won’t be fired anymore."   
  
Seth had won the first hand while she had been recounting the conversation in Vince's office. As he dealt the second hand, Dean shook his head. "How are we supposed to turn heel from that?"   
  
Lucy looked at her cards. This time she had a pair of black eights. Not a bad starting hand at all. She would be last to act this time, with Seth getting the honour of going first. She said nothing until the action got round to her, concentrating on not giving a tell to her opponents. By then, Dean was the only other person left in the hand, having made a bet, possibly trying to force her out of the hand before it went any further.   
  
"Call," she announced, putting some chips in the middle.   
  
Dean dealt the first three community cards. They were all lower numbers than Lucy's eights, but they were all hearts, she saw, much to her displeasure. 

 

After another round of betting, Dean dealt another card, and it was another heart. Now all he had to have to beat her was any heart card. 

 

Pissed off with her unlikely bad luck, she exclaimed, "Christ on a fucking bike! Any danger of shuffling them, Dean?"   
  
All three men laughed at her choice of phrase. After she had folded her cards and downed the rest of her beer in disgust, she returned to the discussion about the creative meeting. "As for how we turn heel and The Authority turn face, I'm kidnapping Stephanie and we're ransoming her to Hunter in exchange for his share of power, or whatever, in the company."   
  
"That's not going to turn anyone," Dean scoffed. "The fans will probably love you for kidnapping Steph and making her life a misery. It's a certain fact that no one's going to have any sympathy for Hunter over it. They've made everyone's lives hell for what, three years? Then the first time someone gets a bit of revenge, you’re telling me they're going to turn face because of it? It's a stupid fucking idea."   
  
"I've got to admit, I'm with Dean," Seth said. "I don't know what they were thinking with this one. What did you say to them, Lucy?"   
  
"I told them I thought it was great," Lucy admitted reluctantly, embarrassed now that she had heard Dean's take on the idea. She had to admit he had made some very good points. Maybe she gotten carried away, thinking that Hunter and Stephanie were giving her exactly what she wanted.   
  
"And I'm guessing they're now set on going ahead with this thing?" Roman asked.   
  
Lucy looked at him and nodded. "Steph said they're going to instruct the writers to start working out the finer points, or whatever term she used. I think they're committed to this now."   
  
Roman smiled in resignation then said, "I guess it would be funny in a way if terrorising Stephanie was the thing that managed to get you over as face, without her intending it to. God knows she's tried everything else."   
  
"That would be funny," Lucy said. "But I thought the point was that we wanted to be a heel team?"   
  
"That's what they'll be booking us as," Seth pointed out. "Working heel is a lot more fun, so I'm up for it whether they actually boo us or not. I've long since come to the realisation that the poor writing they constantly come up with is their problem. And besides, it’s hard to get a proper heel reaction and be a good wrestler these days. Look at AJ. He’s been working heel for ages, but no one boos him because he’s great in the ring.”   
  
"I'll tell you what I'll do, Lucy," Dean said, reaching into his jeans pocket for his money and pulling out a hundred. "I won't say the night after Wrestlemania, because that's when all the Brits are over and they'll obviously cheer you, but the week after that? If you've managed to get yourself cheered instead of booed at last on that Raw, thanks to talking to Steph about turning you heel of all things, I'll give you this hundred bucks."   
  
Laughing, Lucy offered her hand to shake on that deal. "You're on. I'll get myself over as a face by requesting a heel turn. That's how good I am."   
  
Dean shook hands and grinned around the table at the guys. "Now she's fitting in with us, pulling ridiculous shit like this."   
  
As the poker game unfolded, although she didn't have much luck with the cards, Lucy felt like she was really a part of The Shield group for the first time. Rather than forced or awkward, the conversation and interactions she was having with them all felt natural. 

 

Seth and Dean ended up being the last two players left in the game, with Dean ultimately winning the money. By that point, it was quite late and the guys soon made their excuses to head back to their own rooms.   
  
Seth and Roman were first to leave, while Dean messed around putting his winnings in his pocket. At the door, Roman said goodnight to Lucy and Seth then did the same. As he did so, they made an unspoken agreement with their eyes that he would leave with Roman and Dean, and then come straight back up for the sex that they were both craving. It was a necessary game to keep what they were doing a secret.   
  
With Seth and Roman waiting for him out in the hallway, talking and laughing, Dean approached Lucy with two one hundred dollar bills in his hand. Offering them to her, he quietly said, “Thanks for getting this night together, it was a lot of fun. I’m not going to drink all your beer and take your money.”

 

“Thanks, Dean,” Lucy smiled warmly, appreciating the kind gesture. She reached out to take the money, but Dean snatched it away just before she touched it and laughed in her face.

 

“As if,” he said, laughing loudly as he walked out of the room. “See you in the morning, loser. Come on, guys.”

 

After closing the door, Lucy burst out laughing. If anything confirmed for certain that she was now a real part of the group, it was that last exchange with Dean. She could imagine it being exactly the kind of thing he would have done to Seth.

 

Down the hallway, the three guys were just entering an elevator. 

 

“That was a good night,” Roman said tiredly as he pressed the buttons for his and Dean’s floors. “Apart from Dean getting all the luck as usual, of course. I’m glad that Lucy is okay once you get to know her a bit and get past that dumb front of attitude she puts up.”

 

“Yeah, I like her,” Seth said as he added his floor to the selection, knowing what he was trying to say and not considering the fact that his friends might see another meaning in the words.

 

“Yeah, we can tell that,” Dean said offhandedly, leaning against the back wall of the elevator. “The girl shows a bit of tit and you’re drooling all over her.”

 

“I wasn’t drooling,” Seth protested, feeling his cheeks warming up. He knew then that he was busted.

 

“So you weren’t in her room the other night?” Dean asked casually, not letting him off the hook.

 

Seth sighed deeply. There was no point denying it any longer. “Guys, please don’t let on that you know. We really don’t want this going round the locker room.”

 

The elevator stopped on Roman’s floor. “I won’t say anything,” he promised as he walked out of the elevator, although he had to shake his head at how fast his friend worked with the ladies at times. He said goodnight, then the doors slid closed.

 

“You’re unreal, dude,” Dean said to Seth, laughing. “She’s on the team less than a week before you’re fucking her.”

 

“Dean,” Seth squirmed. “Please don’t let on to Lucy that you know, at least not any time soon. She’s just getting to know us, and I don’t want her to run a mile because of this.”

 

“Well,” Dean said, dragging the word out as if he was trying to make a decision.

 

“I’m serious, man,” Seth said more firmly.

 

The elevator arrived on Dean’s floor. He clapped Seth on the shoulder, then pressed the number for Lucy’s floor, knowing that was where Seth was really heading. “My lips are sealed. Enjoy.” With that, he was gone.

 

When the doors closed again, Seth sighed and leaned against the side of the elevator. He knew he could trust Roman and Dean to stay quiet, joking aside, but he and Lucy were going to have to do a better job of keeping things secret if they wanted to stop someone else finding out that they were seeing each other. 

 

The worst thing was, he was going to have to tell Lucy that they had been found out. How would she take the news? Would she be okay with it? Maybe she might even find it amusing? Or maybe it would go the other way and she would break it off, he thought, banging the back of his head against the wall in frustration.

 

“Shit,” he said quietly.


	16. Chapter 16

Seth knocked quietly on Lucy's hotel room door, now feeling a lot less enthusiastic about what might be about to come than he had been earlier in the night. Now, there was going to be more to it than sex; he was going to have to tell her that Roman and Dean had already figured out that they were seeing each other. It didn't take much to figure out that she was not going to be at all pleased by the revelation, considering how adamant she had been about it being kept a secret.

The door flew open, surprising Seth, and before he could react, Lucy aggressively pulled him into the room. After she kicked the door closed, she pushed him back against it and started kissing him in an almost furious manner, desperate to release some of the pent up tension that had been building inside of her all night.

Ordinarily, Seth would have relished such a passionate encounter with a woman, but he felt like he had to break the bad news to Lucy before he could have sex with her. "Lucy, wait," he said, pulling his head back to stop her kissing him.

"I've waited long enough," she breathed, burning with desire for him. She pulled his head back towards her and started kissing him again as her other hand found its way down inside the front of his jeans.

Although Seth was quickly getting turned at having Lucy all over him, he summoned all of his willpower to gently push her back from him so that he could step away from the door.

"What the fuck's your problem?" she angrily demanded, glaring at him.

"Lucy, we need to talk," Seth said, walking past her and sitting down on the edge of the bed. He gestured for her to sit beside him and said, "There's something I've got to tell you."

Lucy made no attempt to walk over to him, standing with her hands on her hips. "If you're going to say you're breaking this off, just get the hell out. I'm not interested in listening to bullshit."

"I'm not breaking it off," Seth said, exasperated with her fiery temper. "If I wasn't interested in being with you, I wouldn't have come back up here. Now will you stop being aggressive and sit down?"

"Fine," Lucy sighed irritably. She walked over and sat down next to him, then asked, "What's so important?"

"Roman and Dean figured out we're seeing each other," he revealed, studying her face for a reaction. He saw anger flash in her eyes.

"They figured it out, or you told them?" she demanded.

"I didn't tell them," Seth said patiently. "I don't know how exactly they figured it out. Maybe they saw something in the way we were looking at each other tonight? Like I said, I don't know, but as soon as we got in the elevator they were teasing me about it. Dean pressed the button for your floor because he knew I was going to come straight back up here."

Lucy felt frustration and anger building up inside her like a kettle coming to the boil. Even if she had tried, she probably couldn't have kept her cool. "For fucks sake!" she exploded, jumping up from the bed. Pacing around the room, she ranted at Seth, "We said we were going to keep this quiet. We said no one would know. We said we wouldn't say anything to anyone. And now here we are, we've only spent one night together and those two know what's going on. They must think I'm a right slag."

"Lucy, stop," Seth said soothingly, standing up to intercept her as she stormed in his direction. She did as he asked, but he could tell that she was angry enough to do something really stupid like start smashing the room up if he didn't calm her down. At least she wasn't directly angry at him, he thought. It was the situation that she was raging about.

"Look at me," he urged softly, wanting her to focus on his eyes and properly take in what he was going to say. When she obeyed, he said, "We can trust them, I promise you that. They might make a few jokes and take a few shots at you in private about it, especially Dean, but the key word there is private. They both already promised me they won't tell anyone else about us. I guess that's the question though, isn't it?" he sighed.

"What question?" Lucy asked, not as heatedly as before.

"Us. We need to decide what exactly that means. What I'm saying is, is this just sex for you, something that you can walk away from tonight and not look back? Or is it more than that? Is it something that's worth taking the slight risk that people will find out we're seeing each other? Because no matter how hard we work to be secretive about it, that risk will always be there."

Lucy considered his words for a moment, trying her best to calm down. It wasn't his fault any more than hers that they had gotten busted, yet he was giving her an out, if she wanted it. If she said that it had just been about sex and she was not willing to take the risk of potentially being branded a slut in the locker room - because it was invariably the woman who would be looked at in that way rather than the guy - then Seth was giving her the chance to break it off right now. But that, she realised, was not what she wanted. Committing to a relationship this soon would be ridiculous, but she certainly didn't want to kick Seth to curb and act like there had been nothing at all special between them.

"I don't know what this is," she said, deciding that honesty was the best policy. "But it's not just sex. If it was, I'd be okay with the idea of breaking it off now, before anyone else had the chance to find out. I don't want to do that. I want to keep seeing you, I can say that much. I hope that's good enough for you, because that's all I can give you right now."

Seth sat back down on the bed, and this time Lucy joined him without being prompted. "I want to keep seeing you, too," he said, taking her hand. "I think it's crazy early for us to talk about a relationship or anything like that. Let's be honest, we're just getting to know each other, and we've only spent one night together. What I do know is, I don't want to end it. We can both agree on that."

Lucy smiled for the first time since Seth had returned to the room. "Then I think we need to up our game as far as keeping it a secret is concerned. We got busted by Roman and Dean after less than a week."

"We did, but they're with us all the time," Seth pointed out. "When it comes to other people, we've just got to be be careful when we're at the arena, when we're travelling with other people we know around us, stuff like that. It helps a lot that we're on the same team, so traveling together often doesn't look out of place by itself."

"So you're saying I can only kiss you when we're safely locked away in a hotel room, like, maybe, this one?" Lucy asked in a sultry tone.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Seth said, knowing what was about to come. Further talk about how to keep their secret could wait until morning.

"Sounds good to me," Lucy said. She allowed herself to fall backwards onto the bed, pulling Seth down on top of her as she did so. "Fuck me, Seth," she breathed. "I promise I won't tell anyone."

* * *

After a workout in the hotel's gym, Seth and Lucy walked into the restaurant for breakfast together, having decided that was behaviour as appropriate for teammates as it was for people who had spent the night having sex several times. They saw Roman and Dean already sitting at a table, having just finished their meals.

"Nice of you to join us," Dean quipped when they approached the table with their loaded up trays.

"We've just had a workout," Lucy advised him as she sat down next to Roman.

"I bet you have," Dean grinned, seizing the opportunity to needle her with the innuendo.

"A word of advice," Lucy said, holding up her coffee cup. "It's not the best idea to make smart-arse comments to a girl who's holding a cup of freshly made coffee."

Seth yawned, then said, "You should listen to her, bro."

"Hey, I just thought of something I meant to say to you all last night," Lucy said, quickly changing the subject. She knew Dean was only teasing her, but she still didn't want to talk about it in the restaurant, where anyone might overhear what they were saying and jump to a conclusion which happened to be correct. "You know we have that tour of England next week?"

"Yeah," Roman said, leaning back in his chair, relaxing after his meal. "I bet you can't wait for that. The British fans love you, there's no doubt about that."

"English fans," Lucy clarified, coming closer to snapping at him than she had intended. "But yeah, I'm looking forward to it. What I was going to say was that the second night is in Birmingham and the third night is in Sheffield. Both of those places are within easy driving distance of Leicester, so we can all spend the night after the Birmingham show at my place. Well, my parents' place, I guess I should say."

Roman was tempted to ask if she was sure about that, but he stopped himself, realising that she was making an effort to show that she wanted to be a part of the group by extending this invite.

"That would be nice," he said, but he had to ask, "Your parents know about it, right? They're not just going to have three random guys show up at their door, with no idea that they were coming?"

"I texted my dad about it," Lucy said. "Anyway, there's a good chance that between my parents and my sister, you'll be lucky to even see one out of the three while we're there. They're all doctors, and you know what kind of ridiculous working hours come with that job."

"So we can have a house party and smash the place up?" Dean asked cheekily, lounging casually in his chair.

"If you want me to bury you at the bottom of the garden, sure you can," Lucy said cheerily.

Seth had been attacking his breakfast like a man on the verge of starvation while the conversation had been going on. "I think we'd all like that," he said, giving himself a moment in between mouthfuls to get the words out. "Staying at your folks' place has got to be better than a hotel room."

"It will be," Lucy promised him, sounding proud of the family home. "One thing about being a doctor is that it pays good money. Mom and dad bought the house about ten years ago and did a lot of work on it, extensions and all that bollocks. They made a nice job of it, to be honest. It's a nice area to live in as well, about twenty minutes away from the centre of Leicester by car."

"I assume you'll be throwing breakfast in as well?" Dean asked, still trying to needle her. Now that he knew Lucy could take it and give him as good as she got, it was all fair game.

"Just for that, you're going to cook for us all," Lucy shot back at him.

Roman and Seth immediately burst out laughing, and Seth said, "Trust me, you don't want to go there. He'll have the place burned to the ground within minutes."

As the conversation went on, Roman sat back and listened in silence. As the unofficial leader of the group, he was glad to see that his fears regarding Lucy Thorne potentially being a destructive problem to the team had proven to be unfounded. It was true that there had been problems at first, but he could not doubt that she was trying her best to become as much a part of the team as the three men.

Seth had already mentioned in conversation that one of the first impressions he had gotten of Lucy was that she was a very proud and patriotic person, which told Roman that she would enjoy traveling with them to her country and welcoming them to her family's home.

It was for that reason that he was glad when Lucy pulled him aside after they had checked out of the hotel later in the morning. They had a few minutes to kill while they waited for Seth and Dean to come down from their rooms, giving him the chance to privately thank her for putting the effort into becoming a part of the group, and also for the invite to spend a night at her parents' house.

"What's up?" he asked, deciding to let her go first.

Lucy glanced around the lobby to make sure that none of their coworkers happened to be hanging around. Satisfied that the coast was clear, she quietly said, "Roman, I know you know that Seth and I are seeing each other. He said he asked you not to say anything, but I just wanted to say for myself as well how important it is to me that this doesn't get blabbed around the locker room. The last thing I want is everyone talking about me behind my back, saying I'm some kind of tart."

Roman gave her a reassuring smile, thinking as he did so that she had just reminded him of something else he wanted to say. "Dean and I promised Seth that we won't say a thing," he assured her. "We're close when it comes to things like that. What gets said between The Shield stays between The Shield, let me put it that way."

"Thanks," Lucy said with an appreciative nod.

"There is something I do want to say, though," Roman went on. "I know you're both your own people and can make your own decisions, and I'm quite sure you both have the best of intentions with this thing between you. Having said that, if either one of you starts treating the other badly in any way, I'm going to have a big problem with it."

"Okay, papa bear," Lucy said, using warm humor rather than cold sarcasm. She appreciated the fact that Roman hadn't simply directed the warning at her, he was saying that he would be equally as keen to come to her defense should it be required. "I'm going to start calling you that, if you're not careful," she grinned.

"I'll keep that in mind," Roman smiled back at her. "While we're having a serious talk, I want to say I appreciate the effort you've made to get along with us all and make yourself a part of the group. After the first couple of days, I had serious doubts about whether it was going to work, I must admit."

"Yeah, well, so did I," Lucy admitted frankly. "But it turned out that you're not a bunch of aresholes, so we're good."

Roman chuckled. "We try our best. Well, Dean maybe doesn't try his best, but it's Dean, you know?"

Lucy grinned at the joke, then said, "Yeah, but Dean's a good laugh once you know how to take him. I enjoy his company."

"Speaking of which, I want to say thanks for inviting us to stay at your parents' house next week as well."

"That's alright," Lucy said simply. "The only condition I have is that you all have to try out a few English traditions. I'm talking about drinking Yorkshire Tea, eating fish and chips, strawberries and cream, and of course cucumber sandwiches."

"Cucumber sandwiches?" Roman asked, scrunching his face up at the distasteful idea.

Lucy laughed loudly at his reaction, drawing the attention of several people in the lobby. "Your face! I'm not really going to make you eat cucumber sandwiches, you dummy. That's more of a stereotypical thing. You are going to have to eat fish and chips and drink Yorkshire Tea though, that I do insist on."

"Okay, deal," Roman said. "I'll be an honorary Englishman for a day. I can't do the accent, though."

"That's probably for the best," Lucy said. As far as she was concerned, the tour of England could not come soon enough.


	17. Chapter 17

When Lucy walked into the women's locker room before Raw, she saw that she was the second to arrive. As always, Bayley was there before everyone else. She was in the middle of a conversation with someone on her cell phone, holding it out in front of her. Lucy realised it was a video call.

"Oh, here's Lucy Thorne," Bayley said cheerfully to whoever she was on the phone with.

"Who's that?" Lucy asked, walking over to dump her case next to where Bayley's things were arranged on the bench.

Bayley stood up and got close to Lucy, so that she could see the phone's screen.

"Here's the new badass on The Shield," Charlotte Flair said when she saw Lucy, smiling broadly.

"Charlotte!" Lucy exclaimed, happy to see the one person who had bothered to text her with congratulations upon her return to the ring. That kind gesture had meant a lot to Lucy, and she hadn't forgotten it.

"You're killing it with that new gimmick, girl," Charlotte enthused. "Are you enjoying it?"

To make their conversation easier, Bayley handed Lucy the phone, getting an appreciative smile in return.

"I am," Lucy replied to Charlotte. "I wasn't sure about the idea to begin with, but I'm getting along okay with the guys. The fans are shitting all over me, of course."

"Ah, don't worry about that," Charlotte said kindly. "It's just a bandwagon thing to boo you. It has nothing to do with the work you're doing."

Lucy knew that wasn't exactly true. One thing she had come to terms with recently was that she needed to do a lot better in her matches if she was going to be the top star that WWE wanted her to be. Charlotte was just trying to be nice, though.

"I heard you're coming back soon?" Lucy asked, changing the subject.

"Yeah, Charlotte smiled. "This time next week, I'll be there with you. This is the first injury I've had, and I can't wait to put it behind me."

"We're looking forward to having you back," Lucy said, feeling awkward talking so positively to one of her colleagues. She realised that was a pretty sad reflection on her conduct for the past year. Why should it feel awkward to say something nice?

"Thanks," Charlotte had said, but Lucy had started to drift off into her own thoughts.

"I'll pass you back to Bayley," she said, managing a smile.

Bayley took the phone back and continued the previous conversation from where she had left off.

Meanwhile, Lucy sat down on the bench and sighed. Why could she not have made friends with some of these people when she had first joined the company? Because making friends wasn't something she had ever been good at, she admitted to herself.

Being selfish had certainly not done her career progression any harm so far, but it had left her without any real friends in life. Aside from her immediate family, it felt like Seth was the person she was closest to. Considering they had only known each other for two weeks, that really was pathetic.

While Lucy had been daydreaming about her social inadequacies, several of the other women had arrived in the locker room, including Sasha Banks.

Lucy's arch-rival had also borrowed Bayley's phone to have a few words with Charlotte, just before Bayley brought the call to an end.

When the call was over, Sasha looked at Lucy as she walked over to where she had put her things. "Funny isn't it, someone getting injured and not blaming me for it?" she asked, clearly trying to get a rise out of Lucy.

"Shut it, Banks," Lucy said. "I'm not in the mood for your nonsense. You brought this up last week as well. Why don't you bore off and give it a rest?"

"Yeah, let it go, guys, please?" Bayley asked.

"I'm good at letting go," Sasha said, still looking at Lucy. "I soon had to let my belt go, thanks to the golden girl over there." She then mocked Lucy by speaking like an immature child. "Steph, I can't wrestle and I hurt myself. Can we just blame it all on Sasha?"

Feeling her grip on her temper loosening, Lucy slowly stood up. "Keep pushing me, Sasha. See what happens."

Nia Jax moved over to stand next to Sasha and put a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to calm her down. It didn't work.

"Oh, I know what'll happen," Sasha assured Lucy, voice rising slightly. "You'll run off to Mama Steph and tell tales again, like a ten year old."

"I'm not going to tell you again," Lucy warned.

"Deny it then," Sasha demanded. "Tell me you had nothing to do with me dropping the title, Thorne? Well?"

Summoning all of the willpower she could, Lucy took a deep breath, then turned and walked towards the door.

She only made it a couple of paces before Sasha fired one more shot.

"You know what you are? A racist."

The words stopped Lucy in her tracks. She stared straight ahead for a moment, eyes slightly glazed. If any of the other women had been able to see the look on her face, they would have stepped in between her and Sasha. But they couldn't.

Lucy spun around, seeing Sasha standing there, hands on hips, waiting to see what reaction her latest barb was going to get. She never saw the answer coming.

The right hand that Lucy threw came so fast that no one had the chance to react until it was all over. Thanks to years of boxing training, it only took that one punch, connecting flush just below Sasha's right eye, to almost knock her out cold, sending her crumpling to the floor.

Within seconds, Nia and Emma had moved in on Lucy, grabbing hold of her and pulling her away, telling her to knock it off, even though it was already over.

Bayley crouched down beside Sasha, asking her if she was okay. Saha managed to groggily sit up, a trickle of blood escaping from a small cut on her cheek.

"Call me a racist again, I'll fucking beat you to death!" Lucy screamed, face red with anger as she was bundled out of the door and into the hallway.

"Get the hell off me," she raged once they were outside, managing to aggressively push Nia and Emma away.

"Calm down!" Nia shouted back at her, seeing that they were already attracting an audience of backstage crew members.

"What was that about?" Emma asked, clearly shocked. "You can't just punch her."

"I'm not going to stand for being called a racist," Lucy said angrily, feeling tears prickling in her eyes.

"Take a breath," Nia said, trying to calm her down. After Lucy had done as ordered, she added, "You know what's going to happen now."

"Yes," Lucy sighed as her adrenaline rush began to subside, leaving her feeling deflated. "I'm going to have to go and see Hunter."

"And so is Sasha," Emma confirmed. "Do you want either of us to come with you?"

Lucy just shook her head. She had no intention of lying to Hunter about throwing the punch, or her reason for doing it. It wasn't as if she regretted it. As Head of Talent Relations, it would be Hunter's decision how to handle the situation from here.

"Okay, then go straight there," Nia said, taking charge. "I'll make sure Sasha's not far behind you. Don't even think about not going to Hunter's office; you'll just make it worse."

"I'm going," Lucy mumbled and set off to find Hunter's office.

* * *

"This is unbelieveable," Hunter said angrily, pacing back and forth across his office.

Five minutes had passed since the altercation in the women's locker room. Lucy was sitting on the single couch in the room, while Sasha stood near the door, holding a wad of tissue over the cut on her cheek to stem the bleeding.

"I should have stepped in sooner," Hunter went on, shaking his head. "I knew there was heat between you after all the nonsense about your injury, Lucy. But fighting?" he asked, looking at both of them in turn. "Fighting is not acceptable!"

"It wasn't fighting," Sasha pointed out heatedly. "She punched me in the face. I never laid a finger on her."

"Is this true?" Hunter demanded of Lucy.

"Yes," Lucy said, staring straight ahead.

Hunter took a step closer to her, a stern expression on his face. "Then you've got a lot of explaining to do."

"Explaining to do?" Sasha asked incredulously. "I want her suspended!"

"Quiet," Hunter ordered, holding a hand up to silence her without turning to look in her direction. "You'll get your chance to speak, Sasha. Lucy, why did you punch her?"

"She called me a racist," Lucy said, voice thick with emotion. She looked at Sasha and said, "I hate you because I fucking hate you, not because of the colour of your skin. I'm not a fucking racist."

Sasha showed no particular reaction, continuing to glare at the woman who had bloodied her.

"You're clearly upset," Hunter said, a little more gently. "Why don't you tell me what's going on here?"

"Like I said, I'm not a racist," Lucy said indignantly.

A look of impatience appeared on Hunter's face. "Lucy, you're looking at a suspension for this. You're going to have to give me something here."

Sasha started to speak, but Hunter's hand silenced her again.

Lucy looked down at her lap, not wanting to meet his eyes if she was going to have to tell this story.

"I worked with my first boxing coach, Steve, for a lot of years, starting when I was a teenager," she began. "He was always really good to me. In some ways, he was like having another dad. My dad's a doctor, so he was never around much. I used to love going to boxing practice, it was often the only thing I had to look forward to."

She paused for a moment to compose herself. Getting the words out was proving to be a struggle. "There came a time where I could tell that something was wrong with Steve, that he was ill. To begin with, he tried to tell me he was going to be okay, but I could see through that. In time, it turned out that he had a brain tumor, an inoperable one."

Looking up, with her eyes full of tears, she asked Hunter, "Have you ever watched someone die from cancer? Because I have. I saw Steve on his last day on this Earth, and I said goodbye. That night, when I heard that he had died, I cried myself to sleep."

With a lump in her throat and tears streaming down her cheeks, Lucy managed to say, "Steve was one of the most special people who's ever been in my life. I miss him every day. And he was black. So don't you fucking dare call me a racist."

The final sentence had been directed at Sasha, as Lucy rushed out of the office, sobbing her eyes out.

* * *

Lucy looked up when she sensed someone approaching her. She didn't know how long she had been sitting on the equipment box in the parking garage, alone. It had been a long time, but not long enough. Her eyes were sore from crying. There were no tears left now, much as she wanted to shed more.

"It took me a while to find you," the new arrival said.

"Hunter," Lucy mumbled in greeting, looking back down at the ground. "Have you come to suspend me?"

"Move up," Hunter instructed. When there was room, he sat down beside her. "I'm willing not to suspend you, subject to certain conditions," he announced.

"If one of them is saying I regret punching her, you're going to have to suspend me," Lucy said stubbornly.

Hunter sighed. "You're hard work, Lucy. There are some people who have been here for ten years who haven't created anything like the amount of issues you have in one. But today, I'd have to have a heart of stone not to feel sympathy for you after hearing your story. Sasha calling you a racist was out of line, and I have told her that. With that said, it is never acceptable to assault your coworkers, for any reason. Am I perfectly clear on that?"

"Yes," Lucy said, without any attitude in her voice. She knew that Hunter was doing his best to help her. One thing the guy could definitely do was manage his people.

"Good," Hunter said. "Now, the conditions I mentioned, assuming you don't want to sit out thirty days, including the England tour we're starting tomorrow."

Lucy knew when she was holding none of the cards. A suspension would have been justified, so if she wanted to avoid it, she had to agree to his terms. Looking up at him, she said, "I don't want to miss the tour. What are the conditions?"

"One," Hunter said, counting it off with a finger. "You and Sasha are going to take seven days to think about your lack of professionalism towards each other. Then, next week, the three of us are going to sit around a table and thrash this thing out, once and for all."

Lucy had felt her anger rising as he spoke, but she had wisely kept her mouth shut.

"Two," Hunter counted with another finger. "After we've thrashed it out, both of you are going to apologise to the rest of the women in that locker room. They don't come to work to deal with the two of you at each other's throats every night."

"Three," he went on, barely pausing. "I probably should have had this as number one. You're both on the tour next week. You will not exchange so much as an angry word with each other during that time. If I hear that you have, you're both going home for a month."

"Four," Hunter counted, making Lucy wonder how many of these fucking conditions there was going to be. "Once I've got the details worked out, you and Sasha will be starring together in an anti-racism advertising campaign I just thought up. Two of our biggest names - one black, one white, showing that racism is not a factor in WWE."

"Now," he said, using the gentler tone once more. "Any problems with that?"

Lucy knew she owed him the respect of looking him in the eye. "No, Hunter. Thank you. You could have been harder on me for this," she acknowledged.

Hunter raised his eyebrows to emphasise his warning. "If something like this happens again, or you break one of those conditions, I will be."

"Message received," Lucy said.

"Good," Hunter said, drawing a line under it for now. He stood up, then offered his hand to pull her up too. "Come on, come wash your face."

Lucy took his hand, allowed him to pull her to her feet, then walked back into the arena with him.


	18. Chapter 18

"Where have they gone?" Lucy asked when she walked into The Shield's locker room, finding only Roman in there. Luckily he was already changed into his ring gear, for she had forgotten to knock on the door, her mind focused on the drama with Sasha Banks.

"They've gone to work on their tag match with Joe and Finn," Roman said, looking up at her and putting his phone down on the bench beside him. "You and I are on valet duty, as I'm sure you've already seen. At least, until we all end up going at it with The Authority to close the show. Hey, are you alright?" he asked, noticing that Lucy looked upset and didn't seem to really be listening to him. If he wasn't mistaken, it also looked like she might have been crying.

"I'm okay," Lucy said as Roman got up and walked over to her, concern written all over his face.

"Something's obviously happened," Roman said, attempting to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, only for her to shrug out of his way.

"I know you mean well, Roman, but please don't touch me," Lucy said. She walked over and sat down on the bench, letting out a deep sigh.

"Alright," Roman said, trying not to let her irritability bother him. "Tell me what's happened. I can tell you're upset about something."

"I'm surprised it's not spread this far already, the way people gossip around this pace," Lucy grumbled.

"I've not been out of the room since we got here," Roman advised her patiently. "So, what's happened?"

Lucy decided to give him the short version. "Sasha Banks got in my grille and ended up calling me a racist, so I punched her and damn near knocked her out."

"Oh, Christ," Roman sighed. "What did Hunter say? I assume you've been to see him?"

"I have," Lucy mumbled. "I got away without being suspended, but he threw a bunch of conditions at me. I've got to sit down with that fucking bitch next week and 'thrash it out,' as he put it. I don't see why we can't 'thrash it out' in the parking garage. Judging by the way she took that punch, it wouldn't take me long. She dropped like a bag of spanners."

"I don't think it's something to be proud about, to be honest," Roman said, walking over and taking his place on the bench once more. "I know you have problems with Sasha, everyone knows that, but punching her?"

"Save your judgement for someone else," Lucy snapped before he could go any further. "She called me a racist, and I wasn't going to stand for it. I gave Hunter my reason, and I'm not going through it again with you. All you need to know is, I'm not suspended. I've got to sit down with Banks, I've got to apologise to the other women, and I've got to do some anti-racism campaign with her as well. That should be a lot of fun," she added sarcastically.

Roman took a deep breath, doing his best to resist the temptation to start into a lecture about how to act professionally and how important it was to set high standards now that she was in The Shield. But he guessed that Lucy had probably already heard enough of that for one night from Hunter. It seemed that whatever reason she had for taking offense at being called a racist was a pretty big one to her, even if she didn't want to talk about it.

"Are you okay?" he asked in a gentler tone, deciding it was for the best to be supportive of the newest team member.

Lucy met his gaze for the first time since he had set down, managing a hint of a smile. "I will be. I'm just not conditioned to take shit from people, you know? Before you say it, yes, I know I can't just start throwing fists every time someone says something I don't like."

"You said it," Roman said with a tight smile. "Do you want to go grab a coffee or something?"

"I suppose," Lucy sighed, imagining people looking at her out of the corners of their eyes and whispering behind her back about what a nasty person she was for punching Sasha Banks. Well, they could fuck themselves, she decided. Popularity had never bothered her before; it wasn't going to start doing so now.

"At least Hunter didn't send me home," Lucy said as they walked out of the locker room. "I thought for a start he was going to give me a thirty day suspension and I would have been off the England tour. That would have really pissed me off."

The cynical part of Roman wondered if that was the real reason she had been let off relatively lightly considering what she had done. Lucy Thorne competing in England was a huge draw, not to mention the fact that a pissed off and demoralised Lucy would not have gone down at all well with her biggest sponsor, Stephanie McMahon. Whether it was right or not, the fact remained that having one of the higher ups on your side got you a lot off leeway in WWE. That was just how the company was run.

"Dean will be pleased," he said, wanting to lighten the mood. "He's looking forward to staying at your parents' house and having you cook him breakfast."

Lucy looked at him and grinned, appreciating what he was trying to do. "There's more chance of him being the next one to get one of these," she said, holding up her right fist. "Banks will tell you, it only takes one."

"Okay, Rocky," Roman quipped.

"Adrian!" Lucy quickly called out, emulating the Sylvester Stallone character.

Roman chuckled, glad that he had succeeded in cheering her up a bit. However, as he was thinking that, he saw Sasha Banks walk around the corner up ahead, walking in their direction. Bracing himself for another conflict, he spoke quietly to Lucy. "Easy. Let's not have another scene."

Lucy was prepared for anything, including dropping Banks again if things got physical. She saw that Sasha had visited the medical team; a couple of sutures had been used to tidy up the cut on her cheek and the blood had been cleaned away.

"Lucy, can I speak to you?" Sasha asked.

"Meet you in catering?" Roman asked, implying with the question that he would stay with Lucy if she wanted him to - in case she didn't trust herself not to start throwing punches again.

Lucy nodded to Roman, signalling that she would restrain herself. "What is it you want?" she coldly asked Sasha as Roman walked away.

"I want to apologise for calling you a racist," Sasha said, showing the strength of character to look Lucy in the eye as she said it. "Your story about your boxing coach was upsetting. Obviously, I didn't know anything about that."

"No, you didn't," Lucy said abruptly, knowing that she couldn't stop herself going on a rant that she felt was long overdue. "You don't know anything about me. You've never made any effort to get to know me. Honestly? I'm fine with that, but you need to realise that if you don't know someone, you have no right to judge them. I accept your apology for calling me a racist, but don't think for a minute this means we're going to be friends all of a sudden. You cost me five months of my career, and you didn't even have the class to apologise about it. You could have called me at any point during those five months to see how my recovery was going, but you didn't, not once. You could have said you were glad to see me back a couple of weeks ago, but you didn't. All you've wanted to do since I came back to work is get in my face. Tonight, you ended up getting a smack in the face for it."

"That's about as one sided as it could possibly be," Sasha protested, an annoyed expression on her face. "Like I've told you before, the injury was your fault, not mine."

Lucy felt like she was loosing her grip on her temper again. She didn't want to end up taking another swing at Sasha, so she decided to do the wise thing and walk away. "Hunter said we've got to sit down together next week and thrash this out. Until then, I think we'd better stay out of each other's way, don't you?"

"Yeah," Sasha said simply. With that, she walked away, leaving Lucy to stand there for a moment, trying to regain her composure.

"Maybe I should suggest a charity boxing match to Hunter?" she said under her breath. "Then I could punch her face in and get away with it."

When she walked into catering a couple of minutes later, Lucy saw that Roman had met up with Seth and Dean somewhere, and they were now all sitting at a table drinking coffee. After getting a cup for herself, she walked over to join them.

"Here's George Foreman," Dean said as a greeting, treating what had happened with humour, as he seemed to with everything else.

"Very funny," Lucy sighed, sitting down next to Seth.

"You okay?" Seth asked, showing more concern than his partner.

Lucy sighed, knowing that she was going to have to go over the story again. "How much has Roman told you?"

"I only got as far as saying that Sasha called you a racist and you smacked her one for it," Roman said.

"What did Hunter say to you?" Seth asked. "He must have been close to suspending you?"

"He was," Lucy admitted. "But instead, I've got to sit down with him and Sasha next week and work out our differences. Fuck knows how that's going to go. At least she came and apologised for calling me a racist just now, so that's something. Speaking of which, I've got to work with her on some stupid anti-racism campaign that Hunter's just come up with."

"I wouldn't say an anti-racism campaign was stupid," Roman said over the top of his coffee cup.

"That's not what I meant," Lucy bristled. "Don't start on me, Roman. I've had enough bullshit off people for one night."

Seth had the urge to take her hand, but he knew that he couldn't do that while they were sitting in catering. It would have been akin to putting a banner up on the wall announcing that he was sleeping with her. Instead, he had to try and use his tone of voice alone to get her to cool off. He could tell that she was in one of those moods where she would go off at anyone for the slightest thing, like she had at him that morning after the meet and greet session.

"Calm down, Lucy," he said gently. "The three of us are on your side here."

Lucy made a point of taking her time over drinking some of her coffee, using the time to calm herself down. "I know you are," she said after she had put her cup down. "I'm just on edge right now. All this shit with Sasha really isn't what I need. It feels like it's always such an uphill battle around here. I listened to all of the advice you guys were giving me about being more positive with people, trying harder in the ring, and what thanks do I get for it? That scrawny tramp getting in my grille for no reason. Then when I drop her for it, I'm the bad guy again. I don't know why I bother, to be honest."

"We all want to knock people out every now and then around here," Dean said, lounging back in his chair. "If I can stop myself doing it, I know for a fact you can."

"Honestly, you could look at this anti-racism thing as an opportunity," Seth suggested after finishing off his drink.

"What, an opportunity to spend a day with someone I can't stand?" Lucy asked grumpily.

"No, an opportunity to show Hunter you can take a punishment and learn from it. Right now, the guy is pissed off with you for doing what you did. But if you handle it the right way, you could end up making a positive impression on him by the time you're through working on this ad campaign or whatever it is."

"He's right," Roman said before Lucy could respond. "What better way to stick it to Sasha than to try and show that you're better than her? Punching her in the face might feel satisfying, but it's only you that it has a negative effect on when it's all said and done."

"I don't know about that," Lucy said, managing to give him a smile. "I think if I took a swing at her again, it would have a pretty negative effect on her."

Dean grunted a laugh at her dark humour, while Roman just shook his head and rolled his eyes.

"At least you're still on the England tour," Seth said brightly, jumping on the chance to lighten the mood now that she had made a joke, not knowing that Roman had made exactly the same play in the locker room a few minutes earlier.

His attempt had a much bigger effect on Lucy. When she turned and looked into his eyes, it dawned on her how happy she was to be heading home, even if it was only for a few days, and to be taking her man with her. Her man. It was the first time she had thought of Seth in that way. She wondered if it was too early on in whatever this thing was between them to think of him like that. After all, they had only spent two nights together so far.

Although she had been in relationships in the past, Lucy was by no means vastly experienced with them. Much like any other form of social interaction, she felt awkward when it came to dealing with her feelings or expressing them to others. At that moment, what she really wanted to do was cuddle up with Seth, knowing that being held by him would help to relieve the stress brought on by the altercation with Sasha Banks. But she couldn't do it. They had to keep the fact that they were together a secret at all costs. It was so annoying. At least they could spend the night together when they stayed at her parents' place, she decided, whether there was anyone else home that night or not.

"I can't wait," she said in response to Seth. "As much as I like living and working over here, there's just no place like home." Then, more quietly, she added, "And we'll be able to spend some quality time together as well, without having to keep worrying about whether other people will see us."

"Now that I will look forward to," Seth assured her.


	19. Chapter 19

Jet lag was setting in big time by the second night of the England tour. Working for WWE rarely left much time for sleep; a fact that everyone on the roster quickly had to adapt to when they joined the company. However, they were still human, and they still got tired.

It was for that reason that there had not been much conversation in the rental car as Lucy had driven them the relatively short distance from Birmingham to Leicester. Looking in the rearview mirror, she saw that Dean was asleep in the back, with Roman not far off, sitting next to him.

"Nearly there now," she said to Seth.

Although it had gotten dark many hours earlier, Seth was looking out of the window in his door to see what he could make out about the area where Lucy had grown up. It wasn't particularly easy to do with only street lighting to go by.

"These are some big ass houses," he said quietly, thinking about the small apartment he had grown up in back in Iowa.

"Fucking old snobs, most of them," Lucy said dismissively, referring to the people who lived in the houses they were driving past.

Seth imagined Lucy's parents, both doctors, probably were not lacking in snobbishness themselves. But then, he reasoned, Lucy didn't have that character trait. Maybe it was wrong to judge people he had never met, based simply on the profession they worked in.

"Here we are," Lucy said, slowing the car and turning into a short graveled driveway which set the Thorne family home far enough back from the road to minimise any traffic noise. The large hedgerows surrounding the property would also help with that.

"No one's home by the look of it," Lucy said, taking in the fact that there was only one light on in the upstairs windows.

"Wake up, assholes," Seth said loudly, leaning around his seat to look in the back. "We're at the Thorne mansion."

"Mansion," Lucy scoffed, shaking her head. "We have five bedrooms, and one of them is small. It's hardly a mansion."

"Doesn't sound like it," Dean yawned, stretching his arms as much as the confines of the car would allow. "I've stayed in motels with less bedrooms than your house."

Lucy parked the car near the front door, well away from the double doors of the attached garage. "Really?" she protested. "That's what we're doing now? Taking the piss out of me for not having a small house? Fuck, it's not even mine. I have a shitty apartment in Orlando for Christ's sake."

"As long as there's a bed in there somewhere, that's all I'm worried about," Roman said as he opened his door and got out of the car.

Lucy lead them inside and briefly showed them how the rooms on the ground floor were laid out, so that they could find their way around if they needed to.

Seth took in the living room, dining room, office, and a kitchen with another, smaller dining table. All of the rooms were almost clinically clean and furnished in a manner that made them look like they had been lifted straight from the pages of some lame interior design magazine and placed into the house without any regard for the comfort of the people who lived there.

The kitchen alone must have cost an absolute fortune, Seth realised when he saw it. He could tell it was one of those custom, specially designed jobs that people with more money than sense went for. Lucy had mentioned that the house had been extended by her parents in the past. Judging by the length of the room, he figured that it had to be one of the extensions.

Overall, while he could appreciate the money that had been spent on the home, Seth didn't like it much. It just was not the kind of place he would want to live. He imagined he would constantly feel like he was cluttering the place up simply by being there.

"Help yourself to anything in the fridge or the cupboards," Lucy said.

"Thanks," Dean said, devoid of sarcasm for once. "Your folks have a really nice place."

"Agreed," Seth said, as Roman nodded his agreement.

Lucy yawned. "I'm guessing you guys are as tired as I am?" she asked, without waiting for answer. "Come on, I'll show you to your rooms. I told mom to make sure the guest rooms were made ready."

"Am I in a guest room?" Seth whispered to her as they walked up a wooden staircase which he suspected was made from oak.

Lucy gave him a tired grin. "No. You're on the couch in the living room."

"As long as you're on there too, I'm fine with that," Seth said as desire began to fight off the tiredness he had been struggling with in the car.

"Easy, tiger," Lucy said, looking at him longingly for a second.

It took Lucy a couple of minutes to show Roman and Dean to their rooms. With that done, she returned to where Seth was waiting for her at the top of the stairs.

"We're down this way," she said, leading him the opposite way along the landing to that in which Roman and Dean had gone.

"Nice room," Seth said appreciatively when they entered the bedroom. Again, there was a clinical element to the room, but there were also personal touches in the form of several framed pictures of Lucy from both her boxing and wrestling careers. The king size bed looked very inviting.

"Don't blame me for those," Lucy said, noticing him looking at the framed pictures. "Mom and dad redecorated my room when I moved out. It feels more like a fucking museum than a bedroom now."

Seth closed the door behind him, rolled his case over to the corner of the room, then sat down on the edge of the bed. "The bed looks nice," he said coyly.

"I thought you'd be more interested in sleep than sex," Lucy teased as she took off her fleece jacket and dropped it over the back of a chair which was tucked under a desk.

"You made me wait long enough as it is," Seth replied, pretending to be annoyed. He rolled across the bed and sat on the edge closest to where Lucy was standing.

"Well, we can't have that, can we?" she asked, taking her T-shirt off and tossing it aside. Now only wearing her bra on her top half, she sat down on his lap.

"No, we can't," Seth breathed. Able to hold themselves back no longer, they started to kiss passionately.

* * *

"What time is it?" Seth groaned when Lucy woke him up by fidgeting around in the bed. He could see daylight through the closed curtains.

"Eight thirty," Lucy said, checking on her cell phone. It was quite a lie in for them.

"I slept like a log," Seth yawned, rolling over to face her.

Lucy grinned. "I must have tired you out then."

Seth thought back to the previous night. When he had envisioned the visit to Lucy's house, he had imagined they would spend all night having sex, making the most of the chance while they had it. The truth of it was that he could remember nothing after the first time they had done it. He realised he must have fallen straight to sleep after they had finished.

"Seth?" Lucy said slowly, snuggling up close to him.

"What?" Seth asked, knowing what was coming.

"Fuck me."

"I love a girl who talks dirty," Seth said. Pushing her over onto her back, he rolled over so that he was on top of her as they started kissing.

When it was over, they lay beside each other, sweating and trying to get their breath back. "I could use a shower," Seth panted. "You should join me."

"No way," Lucy said. "There's no ensuite in this room, and there's no telling who might be home now. I'm not risking any of my family seeing us sneaking in or out of the bathroom."

"Spoilsport," Seth said, making it clear with his tone that he was joking.

"Sue me," Lucy said. "I'll shower first, you can go after me."

They lay in a pleasant silence for a couple of minutes, recovering from their lovemaking.

"It's a shame we didn't have any free time in London yesterday," Seth said eventually. "It would have been nice to have you show us the sights."

"You probably have as much idea about London as me to be honest," Lucy said. "I've only been sightseeing down there once myself, and that was when I was a kid. If it's shopping around Leicester you want, I can help you. Other than that? Not so much."

Seth chuckled. "A lot of use you are. So what's the plan today, before we drive to Sheffield of course."

"I figured I would take you all to eat some proper English fish and chips. I know a place where they cook their chips in butter instead of whatever oil it is that most places use. Stupidly unhealthy, but so worth it. I make a point of going there everytime I come home. One thing I really miss living in America is good fish and chips."

"I want to try some of this Yorkshire Tea I keep hearing about, too," Seth said.

Lucy cuddled up to him and put an arm around his waist. "A man who wants to eat fish and chips and drink tea. I am a lucky girl."

"Yeah, well, I'm a lucky guy," Seth said. He tried to roll over and straddle her in an attempt at more lovemaking, but he came up empty as she quickly scooted out of the way.

"Nope," she teased him. "We've got to get up. The others will be up and waiting for us, I'm sure."

"Fuck 'em," Seth protested.

"Now what kind of host would that make me?" Lucy grinned as she took a bathrobe out of the wardrobe and put it on. "I'm going for my shower now."

"And I really can't join you?" Seth asked.

"Next time," she promised.

After Lucy had left the room, Seth relaxed back on the bed, knowing that his day was soon going to have to begin. At times, the way Lucy teased him was infuriating, but he knew it was a part of her character that he was going to have to get used to if this was going to be a long term relationship. At least the sex was great when he did get it, he thought with a grin.

Lucy emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later, dressed in her bathrobe once more. Walking along the landing back towards the bedroom, she was surprised when the door to her sister's bedroom opened. She hadn't heard Lisa come home during the night. She was even more surprised when Dean Ambrose walked out onto the landing in front of her.

"Morning," he yawned nonchalantly, seeing her approaching.

Lucy's mouth had dropped open. She could not believe that Dean and her sister had been… "What the fuck are you doing in there?" she managed to ask.

"I went downstairs for a drink last night. Your sister came home while I was down there. We got talking, one thing lead to another, then…"

"You and Lisa?" Lucy asked incredulously. "What about Renee?"

"You know what they say about different zip codes," Dean shrugged. "This is a different country."

"You fucking pig," Lucy said in disgust. Pushing past him, she charged into the bedroom. "Lisa, what the fuck do you think you're…" She stopped in her tracks when she saw that her sister was not there. In fact, the bed hadn't even been slept in.

Dean burst out laughing behind her. "She's downstairs," he revealed. "She got home from work an hour ago. I asked her if I could use her room to prank you when you got out of the shower. You should have seen your fucking face." He started laughing again.

"Bastard!" Lucy raged, knowing that he had gotten her good and proper this time. Taking him by surprise, she aimed a stiff kick at him, catching him on his left hip. It only made him laugh even more.

"What's going on?" Seth's voice, out on the landing.

Lucy knew he was going to laugh at her now, too, once Dean told him what had happened. It was hard to stop herself from punching his lights out.

"Your girlfriend's too easy to get a reaction out of," Dean reported, walking back out onto the landing. "I had her thinking I slept with her sister."

"Really?" Seth asked, bursting out laughing, just as Lucy had expected. It was humiliating, and she couldn't take it.

"Fuck the pair of you," she exploded, barging past Dean and storming past Seth on her way back to her room. Dean's laughter ringing in her ears didn't make matters any better.

"Wankers!" she shouted back at them. Marching into her bedroom, she slammed the door closed behind her. It took a lot for her to stop herself smashing something in rage.

"Lucy?" Seth asked gently as he opened the door.

"Piss off," she snapped at him, refusing to turn and face him.

"Hey, calm down," Seth soothed her, walking up behind her and slipping his arms around her waist. Pleasingly, she didn't push him away.

"That guy really pisses me off," Lucy said heatedly. "I can't keep taking this shit. I don't do being laughed at."

"Oh, Lucy," Seth sighed. "You need to realise that's how Dean is. Honestly, I'm glad he's trying to get under your skin like that."

"Well thanks a fucking lot," Lucy snapped, trying to wriggle away from him, but Seth held her tight.

"That's not what I meant. Dean was dead against you joining the team when we got the news. But now he's pranking you and making jokes at your expense. He does that to me and Roman, too. It shows he's accepted you as a part of the group, and honestly, I think he likes you." To complete the job of calming her down, he leaned down and placed gentle kisses on the side of her neck.

"So what do I do?" she asked, frustrated. "I could knife the bastard sometimes."

"You need to learn to take a ribbing, babe. Laugh at yourself. My mom always used to say, 'If you can't laugh at yourself, you can't laugh at anyone else.' I really think that's true. And of course there's another thing you can do."

"What's that?" Lucy asked, her tone softening as she allowed herself to relax against Seth and enjoy being held by him.

"Prank the bastard back even better," Seth whispered in her ear with a chuckle.

Lucy turned around to face him and gave him a peck on the lips. "Good idea," she decided. "And, Seth?"

"What?"

"You just called me babe," she pointed out, feeling warm inside as she said it. It was too soon for declarations of love, but this was another step in that direction.


	20. Chapter 20

Once he was satisfied that he had calmed Lucy down and convinced her not to cut loose at her sister for her part in Dean's prank, Seth followed her downstairs. Meeting a member of his girlfriend's family for the first time had him feeling understandably nervous.

"Lisa?" Lucy called out at the bottom of the stairs.

"We're all in here," came the reply from the kitchen.

Seth followed Lucy into the kitchen, to be greeted by a woman who was unmistakably a Thorne. She was maybe an inch shorter than Lucy, with a less muscular build and warmer smile. With only those small differences, anyone could have pegged the two women as sisters. Either mom or dad had dominant genes, that was for sure.

"You must be Seth. I'm Lisa," she greeted him kindly, offering her hand.

"Great to meet you," Seth smiled, accepting the handshake. It was a soft, delicate hand, definitely that of a doctor.

The sisters exchanged greetings and a hug, then Lucy said, "I need emergency coffee."

"Way ahead of you," Lisa said, pointing to the coffee machine at the other end of the kitchen, which was already in operation.

"Nice one," Lucy said. She then walked over to the small dining table where Dean and Roman were sitting. "Maybe I'll pour it over this prick, hey, Dean?"

Dean grinned broadly. "Caught me a lively one with that bait."

Glad that they were only joking with each other now, Seth gestured for Lisa to take the one remaining seat at the table.

"No, you go ahead," Lisa said. "I'm just going to start on breakfast for you all. What would you like?"

"Just toast and eggs for me, sis," Lucy said.

Seth felt awkward, having expected Lucy to tell her sister she didn't have to do that, or at least to offer to help. It was a timely reminder that there were definitely parts of her character that he didn't like all that much. After all, Lisa had just finished a shift at her job; probably a long one if he had any idea at all about the hours that doctors worked.

"You sit down, Lisa," he said. "I'm sure you've had a long day. Why don't you tell me where the things are and I'll cook?"

"Oh God, I guess that means I'd better help," Roman quipped, standing up. "If he does it by himself, we've no chance of getting anything edible."

A couple of minutes later, bacon, sausages and eggs were all frying, and the toaster had also been put to work.

"Any danger of mom or dad making an appearance?" Lucy asked Lisa. They were sitting at the table, as was Dean, who had found a newspaper to amuse himself with. All three of them had fresh cups of coffee in front of them.

"I wouldn't bet on it, not before you leave," Lisa said. "You couldn't have missed dad by much last night, and mom had just been called in to do an emergency triple heart bypass when I left. That's a four hour surgery, all told."

"What kind of doctor are you, Lisa?" Seth asked from over by the cooker.

"I haven't picked a specialty yet, but I'm probably going to choose cardio."

"We'll probably need you if we keep on eating fried breakfasts," Dean said without looking up from his paper.

"We can always eat yours for you," Roman suggested.

Lisa giggled. "Are you guys always like this?"

"Morning, noon and night," Lucy confirmed dryly.

"Bloody hell," Lisa said. "And you got lumbered with Ms Sense of Humour over here. How's that working out?"

"Piss off," Lucy said, pretending to give her sister a withering look.

"I'd say that was my point proven," Lisa grinned, before changing the subject. "So, how are you guys finding England?"

"We come come over a few times a year," Roman said. "I always enjoy coming over here. We visit some nice cities, and the fans are always great. The Brits are some of the best crowds we perform in front of."

"Not some of," Lucy cut in with a touch of arrogance. "The English fans are the best. It's like wrestling in a bastard morgue half the time on Raw over there."

"Not when you're out there; they're too busy booing you," Dean said, not missing the opportunity she had served up for him.

Lisa grinned at the banter as Lucy rolled her eyes. Lisa said, "Yeah, well, I'll see for myself tonight.'

"What?" Lucy asked.

"I'm coming to the show!" Lisa announced, beaming. "I bought a ringside ticket off of some resale site yesterday."

"That's great!" Lucy said, finding genuine enthusiasm of her own from somewhere. It was not a regular emotion for her by any means.

Seth noticed it, finding it a pleasant surprise. "You should have let us know you wanted to come, Lisa," he said. "We could have hooked you up with a ticket for nothing."

"It's fine," Lisa said. "I'm just glad I can come and see Lucy wrestle in person. This new thing you have going on with The Shield is brilliant. You look stunning in your new ring gear."

Lucy drank some of her coffee. "Thanks, sis. I'm enjoying it. It's not popular with the fans, but nothing I do is. It's nice over here though, being cheered for a change. They were all over Sasha Banks the past couple of nights, since what happened Monday managed to leak out. What a surprise that was," she added sarcastically.

"Wait, what happened this time?" Lisa asked. She knew the history of confrontation between her sister and Sasha Banks, but the latest incident was news to her.

"Rocky here was throwing fists," Roman answered as he put the first finished breakfast down in front of Lisa.

"Thanks," Lisa smiled at Roman. "I wasn't going to have anything, but this looks so nice, I'm going to have to eat it." She then looked at her sister and asked, "You punched Sasha? Really?"

"Fucking right I did," Lucy said defensively. "She called me a racist. You know why that triggered me. I punched her in the face and damn near knocked her out."

"Oh, Lucy," Lisa sighed. "You're impossible sometimes. I know you must have been upset, you had every right to be, but hitting people is never the answer."

"Thanks, mom," Lucy dryly. "I already had an earful from Hunter about it, and he's making me sit down with Sasha on Monday night to thrash it out. If only we really could thrash it out, I'd make sure she didn't open her mouth to me again," she said aggressively.

"Can you calm down?" Seth asked gently, bringing Lucy's breakfast over.

Consciously making an effort, Lucy managed not to start getting really worked up and start snapping back at him. Instead, she thanked him for the food and sat and ate it in silence while the others enjoyed conversation on other subjects over their meals.

The table they were eating at was only intended to seat four, so Seth had needed to bring a chair in from the main dining room so that he could squeeze in at the head of the table. While she ate, Lucy found herself repeatedly looking at him. She was struck by the effect that he was already having on her. If he had not been there, the discussion about Sasha Banks would almost certainly have ended in an argument.

Suddenly feeling philosophical, she decided in that moment that she really wanted this thing to work with Seth; that he felt very right for her. She could only hope that he would feel the same way, and that she would not eventually push him away with the attitude problems she had. Knowing she had them was one thing. Changing was quite another.

After Lisa went upstairs, saying that she needed to get some sleep before heading to Sheffield to watch the show that night, Lucy decided to broach the subject that she had been dwelling on for a while. She wanted to show Seth another side of her, in an attempt to prove that she could be a loving girlfriend, not just someone who was interested in sex.

"Guys?" she asked, looking between Roman and Dean. "Would you be pissed off if I said I wanted to change the plans we made for today?"

Just finished with his meal, Dean belched loudly then asked, "Change them how?"

Lucy narrowed her eyes at him. "That's disgusting, Dean. Anyway, I was thinking that I'd like to spend the day with Seth, just the two of us. We've not had the chance to do that yet since we've been together. It's been so much about keeping it a secret that we've not had the chance to actually enjoy any real time together."

"It's no problem," Roman answered kindly. "We'll all drive up together, then Dean and I will make ourselves scarce."

"Thanks, guys," Seth said, smiling at Lucy. Hearing her speak about him and their fledgling relationship in that manner made him feel a kind of happiness that he had not felt for some time. "You're not worried about any of the others maybe seeing us?" he asked Lucy, knowing how keen she was to keep their secret.

"We are on the same team," Lucy pointed out. "It's not the strangest thing for us to be spending the day together. I guess I just won't be kissing you in public."

"Thank fuck for that," Dean said under his breath, promptly receiving a stiff punch on the shoulder from Lucy.

"Those fists are really going to you in trouble," Dean said, rubbing where she had struck him.

"I've not started yet," Lucy warned him.

* * *

"I'm sorry this has been a bit of a bust," Lucy said.

She and Seth had been walking around Sheffield city centre for an hour. It had not taken Seth anything close to that amount of time to figure out that she knew as much about the city as he did.

"I thought you said you knew about this place?" he chuckled, stopping and looking up and down the street at the stores they had already walked past at least once.

"No, I said it was within driving distance of home. I've never been to the centre of Sheffield before. I've been to the big mall, as you would call it, but that's on the outskirts somewhere."

The weather in England in early February was not ideal for walking the streets, to say the least. Pretty much the only positive Seth could find in it was that the cold had made Lucy's nose and cheeks turn red, and he found it adorable.

"What?" she asked, noticing how he was looking at her.

"I'm thinking how cute you look with red cheeks," Seth admitted.

Lucy smiled. "It's not a bad look for you, either." Then she laughed. "Look at the pair of us. Weather a million degrees below freezing and we come out with no hats, no scarves, no gloves. My bloody hands must be about to fall off."

"Come on then," Seth said, starting to walk again. "Let's find somewhere warm to have a coffee or something."

As she walked beside him, Lucy suddenly had the urge to do something she definitely had not expected to do until that moment. Taking him by surprise, she grabbed his hand and held it.

Looking down at their entwined hands as they walked, Seth smiled. "Are you sure about that? Someone might see."

"Yeah, well, I've got cold hands, haven't I?" Lucy said, as if that was the reason she had done it. "Besides, who else on the roster would be stupid enough to be out here? They'll all be in the nice warm hotel waiting to go to the arena."

"I'd rather be here," Seth said, cringing at himself as he said it.

"That's so tacky," Lucy giggled. She pulled on his hand as she walked towards the door of an amusement arcade. "Come on, let's go in here."

"Wow, that's nice," Seth said when they walked through the door, being greeted by a blast of warm air. He looked around at the collection of slot machines, arcade games and other assorted ways for people to needlessly part with their money. "You don't like these places, do you?" he asked.

"I haven't been in one since I was a kid," Lucy said, looking around the establishment herself. There were hardly any other punters in the place, probably because of the weather.

"Look at these," Seth said, walking over to a nearby set of machines which were full of two pence coins. The idea was to drop a coin in the top end, in the hope of more being shoved off the front end as a result.

Lucy smiled to herself as he walked around the machines, studying each one to see which the most likely to turn them a profit. So much for not liking the amusements, she thought.

"This one," Seth pointed. "There's a bunch of coins there just ready to drop."

"We need some change," Lucy said. She walked over to a nearby machine and put a five pound note into it, collecting her large pile of two pence coins in a plastic tub.

Walking back over to Seth, she passed him a large handful of coins and they got to work.

They had both gone into it knowing they would lose the money, but the amount of laughter they got out of it in the process was more than worth the price.

"Where to next?" Seth asked, seeing that their supply of coins was exhausted.

"Let's look around," Lucy said, leading the way. They walked past a row of arcade games that might have been considered relevant fifteen years earlier, then Lucy clapped her hands in excitement. "I always loved these," she said, hurrying over to another attraction.

Seth saw that it was one of those machines that was full of stuffed toys, with a grabber that the user could control to try and win one, paying a lot more in attempts than they could simply buy a better stuffed toy for elsewhere. He was too late to object because Lucy was already putting money into the slot.

"I'm going to get one of these," she said with determination.

"Which one are you going for?" Seth asked, looking at the range of stuffed toys that were tightly packed into the machine. Bears, cats, penguins, they were all in there.

"I don't care as long as I get one," Lucy said. She moved the grabber over towards a dark brown bear that looked like it had been loosened from those around it slightly. Most of its top half was visible. "See that brown one? I want that one," she decided.

Seth watched the grabber descend towards the bear in question and feebly attempt to close its arms. It barely touched the bear that Lucy wanted.

"Bollocks," she said, disappointed.

The English word made Seth laugh. It was becoming something of a regular thing, and he liked it.

"It's not funny," she told him as she put more money into the machine, pretending to be annoyed.

"Bastard thing," she exclaimed a couple of minutes later, after two more failed attempts. One of them had pulled the bear up a little more, revealing that it was holding something. They could not tell what it was.

"Let me try," Seth said, glad that he had some English coins of his own to spend. He stood directly behind Lucy to operate the machine, arms wrapped around her waist. It was the strangest of places for an intimate moment.

Seth's first attempt was a failure. Deciding he was not going to leave without winning the bear for Lucy, he inserted more money.

"That looks good!" Lucy exclaimed as the grabber descended again. It locked its arms around the bear's head and lifted it clear of the rest.

"Come on!" Seth called out, willing it not to fall. It was ridiculous how tense he felt as the grabber carried the bear towards the chute where winning items would be dropped.

"Yes!" Lucy exclaimed when the bear tumbled into the chute. She turned around, body pressed against Seth, and kissed him. "Great job," she smiled, then kissed him again.

Seth felt weirdly proud, considering what he had actually done was win a cheap toy bear in an amusement arcade. He crouched down and took the bear out of the machine. Only then did he notice what the bear was holding in its hands. It was a heart, with the words 'I love you' written on it. Without saying anything, he handed the bear over to his girlfriend, feeling awkward.

"Oh," Lucy said softly when she also saw the heart and its message. She looked at Seth with the kind of sheepish expression he had never seen from her before. "Maybe a bit soon for that," she said quietly.

Seth knew that she was right, of course. It was way too early in their relationship to say that to her. "Yeah," he said, still smiling awkwardly. "But please keep the bear."

Lucy reached up and kissed him again. "I definitely will," she promised.


	21. Chapter 21

"This might be the last time I do this," Lucy said grimly as she and the other three Shield members entered the arena for Raw, pulling their cases along behind them.

"What do you mean?" Seth asked, walking beside her.

"I've got that sit down thing with Hunter and Banks tonight," Lucy reminded him. "If she starts running her mouth and I cave her face in, safe to say it will be the last you see of me around here."

"Then keep your fists to yourself," Roman suggested from behind them. "Surely you can get through a meeting without feeling the need to punch the woman?"

"Get through it without feeling the _need_ to punch her?" Lucy asked, emphasising his exact phrasing. "I feel the _need_ to punch her already. It's whether I can get through without actually _doing_ it that's up for debate. She'd better watch her mouth, that's all I can say."

"I wish you'd stop talking like that," Seth said, irritated by her attitude. "You're not going to punch her in front of Hunter, we all know that. All you're doing right now is working yourself up. For all you know, this chat could be just what you and Sasha need to work out your differences. That is why Hunter arranged it, after all. Don't forget, he could have sent you home for thirty days last week for what happened, then you would have missed all of those awesome shows in England. He's trying his best to give you a chance and be fair to you."

"Missing England would have been shit," Lucy admitted. "I had a lot of fun last week. If only we could have English crowds every week, this job would be so much better. Having Lisa come to that show in Sheffield was really great, too."

"She mentioned that last night when I called her," Dean chirped up. His latest way of getting a rise out of Lucy was to keep mentioning her sister as if they were seeing each other. It followed on from the reaction he had gotten from Lucy when he had pranked her by walking out of Lisa's bedroom as if he had spent the night in there.

Lucy looked back at Dean with a stern expression on her face. "I swear, if you keep talking about my sister like that, I'm going to swing for you."

"Sounds like jealousy to me," Dean mumbled, plenty loud enough for the group to hear.

Roman chuckled, but Lucy ignored them both and returned to the subject she and Seth had been discussing. "Lisa said she had a great time, particularly joining in with that song the crowd started singing while I was in the ring that night. I have to admit, I enjoyed that a lot myself. I hope they continue it next time we're over there."

"What was it again?" Seth asked. "Thorne will tear you apart, right?"

"Yeah," Lucy said. "It's a Joy Division song they were ripping off. Love Will Tear Us Apart." She then sang the lyrics the Sheffield crowd had used. "Thorne, Thorne will tear you apart, again!"

"And then they were singing it at Sasha, too," Dean said, laughing at the memory. "I don't think she liked that very much."

"I know. The look on her face was priceless," Lucy said, not managing to actually laugh about it herself. "She looked like she'd just drank a cup of warm piss."

Seth grimaced. "You come up with the nicest images sometimes."

"I guess it's all going to change tonight, though," Lucy said, ignoring his comment. "I'll be back to public enemy number one, of course. Let's just pointlessly boo Lucy Thorne, regardless of anything. Honestly, some wrestling fans are so brain-dead."

They reached the locker room that had been assigned to The Shield. Roman and Dean walked inside, leaving Seth and Lucy to say their goodbyes.

"Lucy, you really need to snap out of this," Seth said gently. "I can tell you're in one of your negative moods, and that's when you start getting all snappy with people. That's really not how you want to be when you walk in there with Hunter and Sasha. I get the feeling he's not going to be in a very tolerant mood when it comes to that sort of thing."

"I can't help it," Lucy protested. "I had a great week back home. I got to be with you without us looking over our shoulders all the time, I got to see Lisa, I got a lot support from the fans. Now it's back to the fucking grind, hardly seeing you, getting shit on every time I go out to wrestle, and on top of that, I'm supposed to go in there and act like I want to build bridges with Sasha Banks. You know Hunter's going to make me apologise to her, too. I think I'd rather just take my stuff and..."

"Shhh," Seth said, touching a finger to her lips to stop her in mid rant. "I know you don't mean what you're saying right now. You were upset about the possibility of getting suspended. I get that you don't want to apologise to Sasha, but it's something you need to do. It's not about the two of you ever becoming friends, it's about the fact that you need to be able to act professionally around each other. Like I said a minute ago, Hunter hasn't been unreasonable at all over this, in fact he could have come down on you a lot harder. I think you know that."

"But what about seeing you?" Lucy said sulkily. "It's back to not spending time with each other for the sake of appearances, and it sucks."

"I know it does," Seth said. "We agreed that it's for the best, at least for now. It's not like it will always be this way."

Lucy sighed, feeling some of the tension leaving her. "I know," she admitted. "I'm just not good at dealing with things I don't like. I'll just be glad when tonight is over and this dumb meeting is behind me."

With those words, it dawned on Seth. Lucy was putting up her front of bravado again because she was nervous about the meeting. All the talk about punching Sasha Banks and walking out on Hunter was not what she was really thinking at all. She was actually afraid that Hunter might still suspend her for what she had done the previous week. "I get it now," he said, wishing he could risk hugging her. Unfortunately, the hallway was not the place for that. "You're worried about how this is going to go, aren't you? You can talk to me about how you really feel, Lucy. We're together now. That means you don't have to pretend to act like you're going to walk in there and give Sasha a beating or tell Hunter to kiss your ass. Be honest with me, that's all I ask."

Lucy closed her eyes for a second to compose herself. The fact that Seth had seen through her and figured out what was really going on should not have been a surprise; he was already getting good at reading her. Feeling angry with herself, she realised that she had to start trusting him with her problems. A relationship without trust was destined to fail rapidly. She definitely didn't want him to feel like he was being pushed away. "Can we get out of this stupid hallway?" she asked. "We can't have this conversation here."

It did not take them long to find an empty office where they could talk without crew members and potentially other wrestlers walking past and overhearing them. "Okay, I'll level with you," Lucy said after she closed the door behind them, leaving her case next to Seth's, just inside the door. "I'm nervous about the meeting, alright? Actually, I barely slept last night because I was thinking about it. I know what I'm like, Seth. Sasha knows how to push my buttons like no one else, and I can see myself losing my cool in there. You were right before when you said I won't hit her, but I can see one hell of a row kicking off if she starts with her attitude."

While Seth was happy that she had been honest with him, he had to admit that there was no ideal solution that he could provide for the problem she had. With that in mind, he knew that he had to do the next best thing. He had to be supportive. "I'm sorry you've been losing sleep over this," he decided to open with, being as sympathetic as possible. "I wish you had opened up to me about it before. I would have tried my best to help you. Having said that, I don't think there's really all that much I can suggest. It's going to be difficult, sitting across the table from someone you have so much negative history with. All I can say is, try your best to keep your cool, speak to Hunter respectfully, and if you can, offer your hand to Sasha after the conversation is over."

"Offer my hand to her?" Lucy said, making it sound like he had told her he had just arrived from Mars. "Why would I want to offer my hand to her? Fuck that."

"It would show both her and Hunter that you're serious about wanting to move past all of the drama," Seth pointed out. "And it would also put her in a bit of a position. If she doesn't shake your hand, you look like the bigger person. It's a no-lose situation for you."

"I guess," Lucy said reluctantly. "Even after this is over, I've still got to do the anti-racism campaign with her. I'm sure that will be about as much fun as eating a razor blade sandwich."

"Who knows, maybe by then you'll be on okay terms with her," Seth offered optimistically. "What a turn up it would be, if you actually ended up enjoying each other's company."

Lucy snorted. "Yeah, and a pink pig just flew out of my arse."

Seth chuckled, which in turn raised a smile from Lucy. That was one of his objectives completed at least. "You've got this," he said confidently. "I'll tell you what, I'll come to your room tonight and I'll buy us a bottle of something nice to drink. How does that sound?"

Lucy eyed him seductively. "It sounds great. And there will be sex afterwards."

"There you go, lots to look forward to," Seth grinned. Spreading his arms to offer a hug, he said, "Come here."

Lucy embraced him and rested her head against his chest. "You must think I'm hard work," she mumbled.

"No doubt about it," Seth said, holding her tightly. "But I wouldn't have you any other way."

They stood there in each other's arms for what could have been one minute or five, they had no idea. It was so nice to hold each other, it felt like they could have stayed there forever.

"I suppose I'd better go," Lucy reluctantly said, pulling away from him. "If I know Hunter, he's going to want to get on with the meeting before things start to get busy. Tell me I'm not going to screw this up, Seth."

Looking into her eyes, Seth saw vulnerability there for the first time since he had known her. He leaned in and gave her a gentle kiss before saying, "You won't screw it up. It will be fine, I promise. If it starts to go badly in there, I want you to take a breath and remember that I'm waiting for you when you're done. You can vent any frustrations at me in private. Maybe that will help in some way."

Lucy hugged him again. "Yeah, that will help a lot," she said quietly. "Thank you, Seth. It means a lot, how supportive you're being."

"You got it," Seth said, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead.

They reluctantly left the office and Lucy headed for the women's locker room. As she approached it, she saw Hunter standing in the hallway, on a call on his cell phone. When he saw her approaching, he spoke to the person at the other end of the call, saying, "Give me a second." Then he addressed Lucy. "Drop your case in the locker room, Lucy. Meeting room three, please, when you're ready." With that, he returned to his call and walked away.

Lucy worked out from his no nonsense tone that 'when you're ready' actually meant 'now.' Hunter was in no mood to mess around, just as she had expected. Walking into the locker room, she was greeted by the ever-cheerful Bayley.

"Hey, Lucy! How are you?"

Lucy set her case down next to Bayley's. Grimacing, she said, "Ask me in half an hour."


	22. Chapter 22

When she reached the meeting room that Hunter had summoned her to, Lucy paused for a second with her hand on the door handle. It was the last chance to compose herself before she walked into the same room as her arch-rival Sasha Banks. "What could possibly go wrong?" she mumbled under her breath.

With no more time to waste, Lucy pushed the door open and entered the room, trying to look as confident as possible. She had no intention of approaching this thing like she was the one in the wrong. Ideally, she wanted the meeting to end without getting herself a bigger punishment than working on the anti-racism campaign with Banks. But, she had decided, if tempers got frayed, she was prepared to give Sasha both barrels and let Hunter worry about it from there. One thing was for certain, she was not going to sit there and let Sasha talk any trash to her.

A long wooden table was the centrepiece of the meeting room, with enough cheap leather-backed chairs for eight people. Hunter had moved one of the chairs to the head of the table, and had obviously instructed Sasha to sit to his immediate left, on the opposite side of the table to the door.

"Lucy, have a seat," Hunter said abruptly after she closed the door, gesturing to the chair closest to him on his right.

As she walked over to the table and sat down, Lucy took in the fact that Sasha was making a show of looking at her nails as a way of avoiding eye contact until it was absolutely necessary. There was an open laptop in front of Hunter, as well as a notepad with what looked like a short list of bullet points written on it in his neat script. Returning his attention to the notepad, Hunter spent another minute writing with a very expensive silver fountain pen. Lucy suspected he was deliberately making them wait, keeping her and Sasha stewing in the unpleasant atmosphere that they had created. Trying to make herself appear indifferent, Lucy picked up the glass of water that had been left on the table for her and sipped at it.

"Right," Hunter said, putting the fountain pen down and looking at each of his employees in turn. "You both know why you're here. For as long as I can remember, there has been heat in the locker room between the two of you. I had been hoping that with time, you'd manage to grow up and work it out between you without me needing to step in like this. With what went on last week, it became apparent that wasn't going to happen. By all accounts, we had a shouting match, some very unpleasant accusations hurled, and then punches being thrown. I'm not going to say I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life, because it wouldn't be true. What I can say is, this is the first time since I've been Head of Talent Relations that I've had two of my people fighting. Let me be perfectly clear here, as I was last week. That kind of conduct is _not_ acceptable in WWE. Not now, not ever, for any reason."

Lucy realised this was a chance for her to speak, to make the one concession she had already decided upon before the meeting. It was also, in her mind at least, a way to get one over on Sasha by being the first one to gain favour with Hunter. "I want to apologise for throwing that punch," she said, deliberately looking at Hunter as she said it. "I know it was out of line, even with the reason I gave you last week. I know I can't just hit people I work with when things get heated."

"We'll come back to that," Hunter said firmly. "We're not just here to talk about last week, we're going to sort out all of the crap between you before we leave this room. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I'm aware, it started with your pectoral injury, Lucy?" Again, he had been looking between them as he talked. Although he had ended by putting a question to Lucy, Sasha spoke up.

"You're wrong. It started before that, before she... Sorry, before Lucy," she corrected herself for the sake of politeness, "was even on the main roster."

"Oh, really?" Hunter asked, taking in the new information, his attention now fully on Sasha. "In that case, you're going to have to enlighten me."

"We wrestled each other on a house show one night," Sasha explained. "It was one of those deals where the main roster wrestler gets a squash win over the NXT wrestler. During the match, Lucy managed to punch me in the face. It seems like there's something of a pattern developing there," she added, looking coldly at Lucy as she picked up her own glass of water.

"Stick to the story," Hunter instructed.

"Sorry," Sasha said. She swallowed a mouthful of water, then continued. "So, Lucy punched me in the face and cut my cheek open. I was pissed off about it, and I confronted her when we got to the back. I accused her of taking a shot at me."

"And I said if I had been taking a shot at her, she would have still been lying in the ring, wondering what the fuck had hit her," Lucy said, unable not to grin at the memory of the response she was proud of.

"As you can imagine, I wasn't happy at all about being spoken to like that by someone who had only recently joined the company, just after they had messed up in the ring and left me with an injury," Sasha said.

"I can understand that," Hunter conceded, turning to Lucy. "Lucy, you've got a smart mouth sometimes. Do you not realise that the right thing to do would have been to apologise and make it clear that it was a mistake, not deliberate? I assume it wasn't deliberate?"

"Of course it wasn't deliberate," Lucy bristled. "I'd never even wrestled her before. Why would I deliberately punch her? You're right, I probably shouldn't have fired right back like I did, but I don't take kindly to people getting in my grille with a confrontational attitude. I'm not the kind of person who just stands there and takes that sort of thing."

Hunter turned to look at Sasha. "Do you think you were overly-aggressive in the way you approached Lucy that night? Be honest, now."

"Maybe," Sasha shrugged. "I really wasn't happy about it, so I guess I could have gone a bit too far. It was a long time ago."

"We'll put that down as an accident in the ring which was reacted to badly by both of you," Hunter decided. "And from that point on there was tension between you, which got a lot worse when your injury happened, Lucy."

Lucy put her glass of water back on the table and leaned back in her chair, her body language conveying that she felt like she had no wrongdoing to answer for. "Right," she confirmed. "As I think we all know by now, Sasha screwed up that hip toss badly. As I tried to haul her over, to avoid botching completely, my pec went. I don't know what else I can say about it."

"The truth might be a good place to start," Sasha snapped. "You didn't position yourself right for that hip toss, that's why you ended up hauling me over from an awkward angle, and that's why you got hurt. It was all your own fault, I just happened to be the wrong person in the wrong place."

"That's bullshit," Lucy said, starting to get heated.

"Enough," Hunter barked at them. "This is what we're here to sort out right now. The reason this laptop is here is that I've had one of the production guys put together a video package of the move where the injury happened. Unfortunately, we only have one angle of it, but it's looped several times in slow motion. We're going to watch it together and I'm going to decide once and for all who was at fault, if anyone. My decision will be final, and you will both accept it. Is that understood?"

Both women nodded their agreement, avoiding eye contact with each other, both totally sure that the other was to blame. Hunter shook his head as he loaded up the video clip on the laptop. "I have three kids. The oldest one is ten, and I think they all act more maturely than the two of you are right now."

Lucy resisted the temptation to say that it was all Sasha's fault, realising that doing so would hardly help her to look more mature.

"Right, here we go," Hunter said, pausing the clip as soon as it started to play. "Both of you, watch carefully."

The women leaned over the table slightly to watch the video closely. Hunter hit play. On the screen, Sasha was whipped into the ropes by Lucy, who took up a position side on to her in the middle of the ring, waiting to deliver the infamous hip toss as Sasha came back at her. It seemed obvious to Sasha that Lucy was not quite side on enough to execute the move properly, whereas it seemed to Lucy that Sasha ran towards her at an awkward angle, leaving her no room to execute the move without it looking a complete mess from an audience point of view.

"Look at the stupid angle she ran at," Lucy complained, unable to keep her mouth shut.

"Shut up," Hunter said, annoyed. "I said watch, not talk."

Chastised, Lucy watched the rest of the clip in silence, seeing the same thing multiple times in slow motion. No matter how many times she saw it, her opinion regarding what had happened was not going to change. Risking a quick glance at Sasha, she could see that her arch-rival felt the same way. They were going to have to wait for Hunter's verdict.

"It seems to me that you both made small mistakes on that move," the boss decided, scrolling the video back to the beginning again. "Lucy, your positioning isn't very good." He clicked the pause icon on the video player and pointed at the screen. "The way you're standing there, you were always going to have to put some effort into hauling Sasha over to get a hip toss off properly. But Sasha, you made it a lot harder for her by running slightly in towards her. You should have looked to run away slightly if anything, so that she had more room to work with."

"You're saying it was my fault?" Sasha demanded.

"I'm saying you both made mistakes on the same move," Hunter said patiently. "Both of those mistakes combined resulted in the injury you sustained, Lucy. I have no doubt after watching those slow motion replays that it was no one's fault. It was an accident. It was very unfortunate for such a severe injury to happen like that, but it was an accident, in my opinion."

"I ended up being out for five months!" Lucy protested.

"Vince made me drop the title because I injured her!" Sasha said just as angrily. "We all know that was the reason."

"Stop!" Hunter said loudly. "Sasha, I don't know if Vince had you drop the title because of this or not, and right now, I don't really care. Lucy, I know you spent five months on the injured list, and I don't care about that now, either. It's all in the past. Both of you made small mistakes on that move, which ended up having big consequences for you. It's done. None of it can be changed. We're moving on. The animosity between you over what happened that night ends here and now. Neither of you will bring it up with the other again. Am I perfectly clear on that?"

"Yes," Sasha said quietly, without any attitude in her voice.

"You are," Lucy said, facing up to the fact that she could only make things worse for herself if she kept trying to labour the point.

Hunter leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Good. Now, about last week."

"Like I said earlier," Lucy jumped in, looking at him. "I want to apologise for throwing that punch. I know I can't do that kind of thing."

Hunter raised an eyebrow. "Lucy, it wasn't me you punched. Why don't you try apologising to Sasha?"

"Of course," Lucy said, feeling embarrassed at being called out on her deliberate effort to avoid doing exactly that. Taking a deep breath, she looked across the table at her long-time enemy and met her gaze. "I'm sorry, Sasha. I shouldn't have punched you."

To her surprise, Sasha nodded her acceptance of the apology and managed a hint of a smile. It actually seemed like she had reached the end of her rope with all of the nonsense between them and just wanted to bring an end to it. With that concession, the atmosphere in the room seemed to change substantially. Lucy found herself thinking that maybe putting it all behind them and moving on really was the best idea, regardless of who had been in the wrong to start with. As Hunter had said, it was in the past now.

"And I apologise for calling you a racist," Sasha said earnestly. "After hearing your story last week, I know that one thing you're definitely not is a racist, so I'm sorry for saying that. I was out of line."

"I accept your apology," Lucy said, unsure if she was really speaking the words as she said them. "There was no way you could have known how much it would upset me, but even so, jumping to the conclusion that someone is a racist because they don't like you is wrong."

Hunter looked less than impressed with the short speech that Lucy had decided to add to the acceptance of the apology, but Sasha did not seem to mind it too much. Shrugging, she said, "I apologised."

"That's better, ladies," Hunter said. "I want you to shake hands now, and by shaking hands, I want you to agree to put all of this in the past. You don't have to be friends, but while you're working for this company, you do have to be professional at all times. I trust you can do that?"

"I can," Sasha said. She leaned over the table and offered her hand to Lucy, denying her the chance to do so first as Seth had suggested before the meeting.

"So can I," Lucy said. Accepting the handshake, she was surprised to feel like a weight was lifting from her shoulders. Maybe the constant animosity with Sasha had been having more of a negative effect on her than she had actually realised.

"Excellent," Hunter said, smiling for the first time since the meeting had started. "Well done, both of you, that's much more like it. As I said to you last week, I also expect you to go and apologise to the other women in the locker room when we're done here. They shouldn't have to deal with the kind of scene you put them through last week when they show up to work."

"We'll do it straight away, right?" Sasha said, looking at Lucy.

"Yeah," Lucy agreed.

Hunter nodded his acknowledgement. "Next, the anti-racism campaign I told you about. I'm going to have you do a photo shoot together, both of you in your ring attire, looking genuinely happy to be working together. There will be some kind of slogan on the pictures when they go out, 'WWE, united against racism,' or, 'Standing against racism.' I'm not sure what the exact wording will be, but it will be something like that. I want it done this week, so I'll have someone contact you with the details tomorrow."

"Sounds good," Lucy said, simply for the sake of giving a response. Accepted apologies or not, she was not particularly looking forward to spending an extended period of time at a photo shoot with Sasha.

"Lastly," Hunter went on, "Since what happened last week ended up going public, the three of us will be going camera tonight to film a joint statement. The two of you can explain what happened last week, and you can confirm that you've put your issues aside. You, Sasha will make it clear that you do not believe what happened was racially motivated on Lucy's part. I've been told that some people have been saying that on Twitter, so I want it dealt with as soon as possible. I cannot have one of our biggest names being associated with racism, even if it is incorrect. Lucy, you will speak about the fact that resorting to violence in a disagreement is not an appropriate way to conduct yourself in any walk of life. At WWE, we are role models for the positive, not the negative. That's the message we're looking to send." He paused to look at them each in turn once more. "Everything clear as far as that's concerned?"

"Hunter, can I make a suggestion?" Sasha asked, a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

"Go on," the boss encouraged her.

"Wouldn't it be better if just Lucy and I were on camera? I mean, it might look like you were forcing us to do it if you were there with us."

"She's right," Lucy said, thinking how strange it was that she was agreeing with Sasha on things so easily all of a sudden. "Let us do it by ourselves, Hunter. It will come across a lot more genuine that way, like Sasha said."

"Alright then," Hunter decided, impressed with the change in attitude he was seeing from both women. "I'll let the two of you do it. I have to say, I'm pleased with how you've both handled this. I was prepared to suspend the two of you if you continued at each other's throats, so I'm glad that you've not made that necessary. I've seen a real change in both of your attitudes, which is exactly what I was looking for. Honestly, if you weren't already committed to The Shield, Lucy, I'd think about putting the two of you together as a tag team."

His last sentence had been delivered with a touch of humour, which was why Sasha smiled. "Let's not go too far," she said.

"Okay, that's all," Hunter said, standing up. "Go back to the locker room and apologise to the others, then come find me in the production office and we'll get something set up to film your joint statement."

"Thank you, Hunter," Sasha said politely as she walked around the table, heading for the door.

"Thank you," Lucy echoed. She followed Sasha to the door, pleased that it was held open for her by the woman who now seemed to be her former enemy. She walked out of the room, turning to see if Hunter was following them. Seeing that he was not, she allowed the door to close behind her and walked beside Sasha, heading for the women's locker room. Finding something to say to break the silence proved to be a step too far.

After a moment, Sasha chuckled. "Me and you as a tag team? That's certainly not something I expected to be talking about this afternoon."

"I know," Lucy agreed. "They would never go through with that idea anyway."

Sasha glanced at her. "Why do you say that?"

Lucy grinned. "We'd be too good."


	23. Chapter 23

"I'm not looking forward to it at all," Lucy said. She was in Seth's hotel room, lying on the bed, wearing nothing but her underwear. Her lover had just walked out of the bathroom, now dressed just in his boxers.

"Thanks," Seth said, feigning offense as he joined her on the bed. "I've never had someone talk about the prospect of having sex with me like that before. It doesn't do much for a guy's confidence."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "I didn't mean that. You know I hate having to wait to get my hands on you. All this sneaking around is so fucking frustrating. I nearly said fuck it and came to your room last night, I was so horny."

"You should have," Seth said, thinking back to his own night of frustration. A couple of nights together each week was not going to work as a long-term thing, but he knew he would be fighting a losing battle if he decided to bring up the possibility of going official with their relationship. She did have good reasons for that though, and it was quite soon, he had to admit.

"I ended up having to have some fun by myself," Lucy said, teasing him with her tone as well as the words she chose.

"There's an image," Seth said, feeling himself begin to get turned on.

"I could have sent you a video if I'd have thought," Lucy said, knowing she had him fully on the hook.

"Now you're just teasing," Seth protested, rolling over and starting to gently kiss the side of her neck.

"No, I really would have sent you a video," Lucy lied.

"Well you don't need to do it yourself tonight," Seth breathed, sliding his hand into her underwear.

When the first orgasm of the night was over, they lay side by side once more, relaxing. "So, what were you talking about?" Seth asked after a few moments, looking up at the ceiling.

"Huh?" Lucy said, glad to be getting her breath back.

"You were complaining about not looking forward to something. What were you talking about?"

"Oh, that," Lucy sighed. "I was talking about the bloody photo shoot I've got to do with Sasha Banks tomorrow. I'm really not looking forward to it."

Seth turned his head so that he was looking at her. "I thought you kissed and made up Monday night? You told me the meeting went well, and you and Sasha even shared a joke about being a tag team on your way back to the locker room."

"We did, and we did," Lucy said. "But that doesn't mean I'm suddenly looking forward the idea of spending a morning with her. It's not like I can just click my fingers and be like, 'Yay, let me into the Sasha Banks fan club,' is it? For all I know, we could end up getting into an argument again. I'm not to take any shit from her, that's for sure. I don't take it from anyone else, so she's not going to be any different."

"Just so long as you don't start getting confrontational with her," Seth warned her. "I know what you're like by now, if you get in one of your moods."

"I'll get in a mood with you if you carry on like that," Lucy threatened him, albeit playfully.

"Bring it on," Seth said, grinning. "Seriously, though, try and look forward to it. Glass half full, you know?"

"Hmmm," Lucy said doubtfully. She then set all thoughts of Sasha Banks aside. There were much better things to think about. "Right now, I'm looking forward to something else," she purred, rolling over and straddling Seth.

"Me too," he assured her.

* * *

Lucy had felt pleased with herself when she arrived at the studio for the photo shoot as it had appeared that he had arrived before Sasha Banks. She spent a couple of minutes introducing herself to two people WWE had hired for the shoot, a male photographer and a female makeup artist. Unfortunately for Lucy's competitive nature, when she walked through to the changing area to put on her ring attire, she found Sasha just emerging from one of the cubicles, already changed.

"Hey, Lucy," Sasha greeted her, her tone civil enough.

"Sasha," Lucy said, consciously making the effort to be polite. If Banks could do it, so could she.

"I don't know what exactly they're going to have us do for this shoot," Sasha said as a way to make conversation.

"Neither do I," Lucy shrugged. "From what Hunter said, it's basically supposed look like the two of us in our in-ring personas, all smiley and shit, like we're happy to be spending time with each other or whatever. Then they'll throw a border around the pictures and that'll be that."

"That's about what I got, too," Sasha said, not sounding overly impressed with the idea. "It sounds like the pictures they use for this campaign could end up being quite lame, maybe even false-looking."

"Or they could look like advertisements for some kinky lesbian dating site," Lucy said, smiling broadly at the image she had in her mind.

To Lucy's surprise, Sasha laughed loudly at her joke. "Right? Especially with the gear you wear."

"Are you trying to say I look like some lesbo dominatrix or something?" Lucy asked, pretending to eye her suspiciously.

Sasha laughed again. "You said that, not me."

"I'm never going to be able to get that thought out of my head now every time I put this shit on," Lucy complained, walking into one of the changing rooms and closing the door behind her.

She spent a few minutes changing into her all-black attire; boots, pants, shirt, body armour and leather gloves. She checked in the mirror to make sure she looked good enough for the photo shoot, apart from her makeup which would be done soon, before the shoot got underway. "You look badass, not like something from a lesbian fetish website," she told the reflection. Still, the thought was amusing. "Now I've got a private joke going on with Sasha Banks," she said under her breath. "Who would ever have thought it?"

Shaking her head at the absurdity of the situation, Lucy left the changing area and headed off to join the others. She found Sasha sitting in the makeup chair, being attended to by the female member of staff while the cameraman stood nearby, tinkering with his equipment. The shoot would be a simple one, requiring Lucy and Sasha to pose as instructed by the cameraman in front of his large green screen.

Sasha started giggling when she saw Lucy, to the obvious annoyance of the makeup artist. "Sorry," Sasha said. "I just can't look at you the same way now, Lucy."

Again, Lucy was surprised to find herself amused by the situation rather than annoyed at being laughed at by the woman who had until very recently been her arch-rival. "What do you expect me to do, put a collar and a lead on you and start walking you round the place or something?" she asked, trying her best not to burst out laughing.

"Sadly, it's not that kind of shoot, ladies," the cameraman said dryly, without looking up at them.

Sasha laughed again. "Can you imagine Hunter's face if we sent him back pictures like that?"

"Can you sit still, please?" the makeup artist asked with more than a hint of irritation.

"Sorry," Sasha said.

While she waited for her turn in the makeup chair, Lucy found somewhere to sit down. With nothing better to do, she took out her phone and checked her social media. Now more focused on fan interaction, she retweeted a couple of kind messages that fans had sent her, safe in the knowledge that it would make those particular fans very happy to have been noticed. Then she decided to message Seth to let him know how things were going to far.

 _I'm at the studio,_ she wrote. _Actually had a laugh with Sasha. Apparently she thinks I look like something from a lesbian fetish site in my ring gear. I don't know if she thinks I should be wearing a gimp mask, or sticking a police baton up her chuff? Either way, I think she's out of luck._ She finished the message with a laughing emoji and hit send.

Seth's reply took less than a minute to come. It began with a shocked face emoji. _Don't know what's more shocking, the thought of you both getting along, or what you just described. I don't think Hunter would accept it as PG. Maybe just send the pics to me instead?_

 _Dirty bastard,_ Lucy replied.

Seth replied with a thumbs up emoji and, _You know it. You do look sexy as hell in that ring attire. It would be better if it was all leather though._

 _I'll keep that in mind,_ Lucy wrote back, deciding to tease him. _Who knows, maybe I'll do some shopping at some point?_

Seth sent back an emoji with love hearts for eyes, then wrote, _Text me when you've finished the shoot. xx_

"You're up," Sasha said, walking over to Lucy, her makeup finished.

Lucy came so close to telling Sasha that she had been texting Seth about their conversation, only remembering in the nick of time that their relationship was still a secret. That kind of thing would hardly be normal conversation for tag team partners to be having. "Right," she said instead, hurrying over to the makeup chair.

An hour later, the shoot was over. The fact that Lucy and Sasha had gotten off to a good start with the jokes they had shared had made the process a lot less awkward than it might have been. When they had been given the chance to see the range of pictures that would be sent back to WWE to chose from for their campaign, they had both been happy with what they saw. Rather than looking forced or pathetic, they did actually appear to show two people who were happy to be around each other, smiling or laughing in their various poses.

"I think Hunter will be please with them," Sasha said as they walked back to the changing area.

"Me too," Lucy agreed. "They came out a lot better than I thought they would." There was a brief silence, which Lucy felt compelled to fill. Of all things, she would not have expected to find herself considering saying what was now on her mind. "Listen, Sasha," she began hesitantly.

"Go on," Sasha encouraged, wondering where this was going. They reached the changing cubicles and stopped walking.

"I, uh, I know I'm not exactly easy to work with," Lucy began, putting the words together on the fly. "We've both given each other a lot of shit in the past, and I think we were both to blame for it. But when I came back and had this Shield thing handed to me, I really did want to make a fresh start. I've been getting along well with the guys, and getting along better with the other women as well. I've also been making more effort with the fans, on Twitter and things." Realising she was rambling, Lucy decided to get to the point. "What I'm trying to say is, I know Hunter already made us shake hands the other day, but what do you say we have a fresh start, too?" She offered her hand for Sasha to shake.

Sasha considered what she had heard for a second. "I actually quite enjoyed today," she revealed. "I wasn't looking forward to it at all, but I did enjoy it. I guess that shows it's possible for us to get along. Yeah, okay," she decided, accepting the handshake. "A fresh start."

"Now, that's progress," Lucy said, to herself as much as to Sasha.

Not long afterwards, Lucy was back in her car, heading for the airport. She used the hire car's hands frees system to call Seth's number.

"Hey," he answered after a few rings, his voice coming through the car's speakers. "How did it go?"

"Really well," Lucy reported. "I actually enjoyed myself, and guess what?"

"You took some dirty pictures after all?" Seth hazarded.

"No, dick head," Lucy sighed. "I told Sasha that I wanted a fresh start and offered my hand to her, like you said the other day before the meeting. I know Hunter had us shake hands at the end of that, but this was different, you know? Being forced to shake hands doesn't really mean much. Today, it was actually agreed between the two of us. We actually are going to drop all the shit between us and move on. If today is anything to go by, I think we can get on okay."

"I'm really pleased to hear that," Seth said seriously. "This is going to sound incredibly patronising, but I don't know how else to say it. I think you've come a long way in the past few weeks, and it's really great. Again, I don't mean to..."

"I know what you're saying," Lucy smiled. "And you're right. I spent half the time acting like an immature kid, like all of this with WWE was some kind of joke. I'm glad Vince and Steph put me with on the team you guys, it really was the best thing that could have happened for my career. And then there's the fact that I ended up with you, of course. I can't wait to see you, Seth."

"I can't wait to see you either, babe," Seth said. His tone conveyed just how much he meant it.

Lucy said, "I feel I'm moving on from all the bullshit now. I see only positive things ahead of us."


	24. Chapter 24

"Do you really have to go?" Lucy said, whining like a child who was being denied her favourite toy.

"You know I do," Seth replied, no less keen on the idea than she was.

They had spent one of their frustratingly rare nights together, this time in Lucy's hotel room. As always, the room service food had been delicious, the wine had slipped down like a dream and the sex had been amazing. But with the morning came the time for them to part ways before breakfast, needing to carry on the frustrating charade that they were nothing more than partners in The Shield.

Seth made a final check to make sure he had picked up all of his possessions as Lucy got up from the bed to walk him to the door. "I don't know long I can carry on with this," she complained. "I don't want to have to do this. If only we could just hold hands and walk down for breakfast like any normal couple."

Seth embraced her and kissed her softly on the lips, his heart melting when she said she wanted to hold his hand. It seemed so out of character for her to say such a sweet thing, showing him just how much he already meant to her. "You're a real romantic deep down, aren't you?" he asked.

"I don't know about that," Lucy said sullenly. "But it would be nice to have the chance to try. Instead it's like working for fucking MI6 just to get some sex."

"We could always go public," Seth reminded her, eyebrows raised.

"It's too soon," Lucy protested, pulling back from him. "I'm not sure we're out if the 'she's only been on the team for five minutes and she's shagging him' territory. The last thing I need now I've finally buried the hatchet with Sasha is to be branded a slag by everyone else."

"It has been a few weeks now," Seth said cautiously. "It's not like we first teamed up last night. The sooner we go public, the sooner we can stop sneaking around and playacting. I'm not trying to pressure you into it, just saying how I see it."

"Not yet, Seth. Let's struggle on for a bit, if we can. Maybe until after Wrestlemania. I could do without everyone I meet at Axxess giving it, 'You and Seth didn't waste any time.' People think they're funny when they're totally the opposite, yet you have to smile like you love the banter. Fuck that."

"Okay," Seth conceded, happy to go along with her wishes. As the woman, she was bound to be the one who took whatever flack was to come when the news did go public, so he figured the least he could do was wait until she was ready for it. There was only one thing he needed to hear. "Just promise we will go public, at some point. I don't want to imagine you freaking out and breaking it off with me."

This time Lucy was the one to embrace and kiss Seth. "I'd never do that, I promise. I want to be with you, and we will make it public knowledge. Just not yet, alright?"

"Alright," Seth said softly, kissing the side of her neck delicately, knowing that she loved it when he did that. He was rewarded when he felt her shiver at his touch. "Then I guess I should go," he said reulctantly. "I'll head back to my room and change, then I'll see you for breakfast in ten, okay?"

"Okay," Lucy said as they parted and Seth walked towards the door. Following him, she was tempted to say that she loved him. She knew it was true, but the moment did not feel right to say it, not for the first time.

They kissed once more before Seth opened the door, then he left before he could change his mind and go back for more sex. As he closed the door, he saw Emma walking towards him, coming from the direction of the elevators.

"Morning," Seth said, glad that Lucy hadn't followed him out into the hallway or lingered in the doorway to say goodbye. If she had, they would have been busted. That was how risky this game they were playing was.

"Hi, Seth," Emma said cheerfully as she walked past him, absently noticing that his room was three down from hers. She had always found Seth kind of cute, and seeing him helped her to push aside the annoyance she had felt when she had been about to enter the hotel's restaurant for breakfast, only to notice that she had somehow managed to leave her phone in her room. At least the housekeeping staff were not around yet to potentially steal it, she saw.

Entering her room, Emma saw her phone lying on the bed. "Stupid thing," she told it, as if it had made the decision to stay behind just to inconvenience her. Now, to make matters worse, she felt herself beginning to need the bathroom. Even though there were people waiting for her downstairs in the restaurant, she decided to get it out of the way. "Might get breakfast at some point today," she griped, heading in there.

About ten minutes later, she was ready to try and start her morning over again. Making sure her phone was in her pocket this time, she left her room again. She saw that at the same time, someone else was leaving a room further down. It was Lucy Thorne. Then a further realisation dawned on Emma. Lucy had come out of the room three doors along from her own - the same room that Seth had been coming out of minutes earlier. Emma's mind started racing. Were Lucy and Seth sleeping with each other? It sure seemed like it.

"Alright, Emma?" Lucy asked when she noticed her colleague.

"Hi, Lucy," Emma said, successfully hiding her newfound suspicions behind a smile. "I'm just heading down to breakfast."

"Me too," Lucy said, waiting for Emma to reach her so they could walk together.

They walked towards the elevators beside each other, but neither of them was quick to start a conversation; Lucy because she was socially awkward, and Emma because all she wanted to do was ask Lucy if she was fucking Seth. She wasn't going to be that tactless, though. "Nice to see you and Sasha getting along now," she ventured instead.

"Stranger things have happened, maybe," Lucy grinned as she pressed the button to call an elevator to their floor. With a laugh, she added, "Hunter even said something about making us a team, if I wasn't already on The Shield."

"That would have been some turnaround," Emma chuckled. Their elevator arrived and they rode down to the restaurant in silence. "See you later," Emma said when they walked into the restaurant and parted ways.

"Yeah, see you," Lucy said, heading over to the table where her three partners were already sitting.

Emma fixed herself some food and a coffee then walked over to join her own group. Bayley and Sasha were already half way through their meals when the Australian joined them.

"Did you get lost?" Sasha asked, referring to the amount of time it had taken Emma to go back to her room and get her phone.

"Bathroom," Emma said simply before leaning across the table to take the others into her confidence. As she did so, she made sure no one at the Shield table was looking over at her. "Guys, guess what I just saw?" she said conspiratorially.

"What?" Sasha asked, her slice of toast stopped halfway to her mouth. Bayley also leaned in slightly to hear the answer.

"I went upstairs and saw Seth coming out of a room just down from mine. I went into my room and got my phone, then decided to use the bathroom before I came back down here. When I came out of my room, I saw Lucy Thorne coming out of the same room Seth came out of when I saw him. Guys, I think they're sleeping with each other."

"No!" Bayley whispered, eyes wide in excitement, food forgotten about in an instant.

"Really?" Sasha asked at the same time.

"They're obviously trying to keep it quiet, leaving the room at different times. Unlucky for them, I saw them both doing it," Emma said, pleased with the gossip that her good fortune had provided her with.

Bayley looked over at the Shield table, where Lucy and Seth were sitting opposite each other, chatting away. Now that she knew what she was looking for, she could see the connection between them. What Emma had said was true. "Good for them," she said. Other people's happiness always made her happy.

"Don't look over there!" Emma hissed quietly. "They don't know I know, and I want it to stay that way. You didn't get this from me, right?"

"Okay, it didn't come from you," Sasha said. "But one of us needs to ask her about it."

"Not me," Emma said quickly. "They both saw me this morning, so if I start asking questions, they'll obviously quickly figure out between them that I saw them both and connected the dots."

"And she's not likely to talk to me about it," Sasha said, looking at Bayley. Emma was doing the same.

"You want me to ask her?" Bayley said nervously. "I wouldn't even know what to say. How do I go about something like that? And it's Lucy we're talking about, what if she hits me?"

"She's not going to hit you," Sasha assured her. "Trust me, she learned her lesson on that one."

Emma said, "Just say to her that you heard a rumour she's with Seth. See how she reacts. Even if she denies it, you should be able to see if she's lying."

"Wait, I thought we already decided we knew they were seeing each other?" Bayley said, trying to get out of what she was being asked to do. "You saw them coming out of the same room, Em. Why do you need me to ask Lucy about it?"

"Confirmation," Emma said. "Think about it, it could be possible that one of them got locked out of their room, or one of them nipped down there this morning to see the other before breakfast. Theoretically, anything could have been going on. But if they are seeing each other and you ask her about it, you'll be able to judge how defensive she gets."

"Come on, Bay," Sasha encouraged. "If anyone should be good at this, it's you."

"I don't know," Bayley said hesitantly.

"Look, all you're doing is asking a simple question," Sasha said, doing her best to convince her that her task would be easy.

"Do it for us," Emma pleaded. "And say you heard people talking about it yesterday or something, so it doesn't look like it came from me."

Bayley caved under the pressure. "Okay, I'll ask her later. But if she goes off on me, I'm not going to be happy with either of you."

"Relax," Sasha said. "Lucy likes you. If there's anyone she's not going to snap at, it's you."

"I guess we'll see about that," Bayley mumbled.

* * *

Ever since being given her mission, Bayley had been worried about how exactly she was supposed to get herself the opportunity to speak to Lucy Thorne in private. Luckily for her, it ended up not being a problem at all as Lucy was the second woman to arrive in the locker room before that night's house show. After greetings were exchanged, Bayley decided to ask her question and get it over with before anyone else came in and took the opportunity away from her. Summoning all of her courage, she said, "Lucy, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah," Lucy said, paying more attention to changing into her ring attire than she was to the question.

"I, uh, heard some people talking about you yesterday," Bayley said awkwardly. "I just wanted to ask you if what I heard was true."

"That depends on what you heard," Lucy said warily, stopping what she was doing to look at Bayley.

"They were saying you and Seth are seeing each other," Bayley said. "I mean, it's awesome if you are..." she started rambling.

"No, we're not," Lucy said, sounding a lot more defensive than she had wanted to and cursing herself for it. "Sure, we spend time together, but we're on the same team. There's nothing more to it than that. Who was it who was saying that?" she demanded.

"I don't want to start naming names," Bayley said, wondering how she had let herself get talked into this. "I'm sorry I asked. I was being nosy. I'm sorry."

Lucy glared at her for a moment before her expression softened a little. "It's okay, Bay. I know you didn't mean anything by it. But if you hear anyone talking shit again, you put put them right, okay?"

"You bet," Bayley said. With Lucy's overly defensive response, she had the answer that her two friends required and she could move on as quickly as possible. Making an excuse about needing to get a drink, she got the hell out of the locker room to give Lucy some space and some time to calm down.

Lucy went back to changing into her ring gear, feeling like she wanted kick something in frustration. Somehow, someone had started to put two and two together. From this point, it seemed inevitable that the news of her relationship would start to leak out to the public in the near future. That was always how things were in WWE. There was only one way to sum it up. She sighed, then said, "Bollocks."


	25. Chapter 25

"So much for the secrecy act," Lucy announced without preamble when she walked into the Shield locker room. She saw that Dean had apparently not arrived yet, and Roman had not started changing, which was lucky since she hadn't thought about it before she came charging through the door.

"What's happened?" Seth asked, getting up off the bench and walking over to her.

"I don't know how, but someone's figured out that we're seeing each other. I just had Bayley asking questions when I walked into the locker room. It was pretty obvious that someone else had put her up to it, so you can bet your arse it's already spreading like wildfire around here, even though I denied it."

"Shit," Seth sighed, shaking his head. He knew how important it had been to his girlfriend to keep their relationship a secret for a little while longer so as not to give the impression to others that they had rushed into things. It was inevitable that some people on the roster would be judgmental and look at it that way, even though it wasn't true.

"I'll leave you guys to talk," Roman offered, picking his phone up and heading for the door.

"Thanks," Lucy said, stepping aside so that he could leave. After he had closed the door behind him, she asked Seth, "What are we going to do?" Her frustration was more than apparent.

Seth grimaced. "If you're right about it already spreading around the back, which you probably are, then there's not a lot we can do. It's going to spread, and people are going to start gossiping about us. Then the next thing will be rumours coming out online, then it will be all over Twitter."

Lucy felt angry enough to kick something. She knew exactly what would happen as soon as the news hit Twitter and all of Seth's fangirls found out that he was off the market. "And that's when the shit storm comes my way. I'll be getting all kinds of abuse when the nut cases find out. Look at what Renee's had to deal with for being with Dean. People are fucking crazy. I hate my private life being talked about at the best of times," she went on, not realising that she was starting to rant.

"Babe, stop," Seth said gently, embracing her. "You're getting worked up about it, and that's not going to change anything."

Pushing her way out of his hug, Lucy snapped, "Of course I'm getting fucking worked up. You're not the one who's going to get the shit. You're not the one everyone will call a slag. No, it'll be, 'Good for Seth, he's shagging Lucy Thorne.' But when it comes to me, it'll be, 'Filthy slag. She's only been on the team five minutes and she's shagging Seth Rollins.' It's total double standards and it really pisses me off."

"I get that," Seth said, trying to placate her as best he could as he could see a trademark Lucy Thorne temper eruption on the way. "But don't take it out on me. We're in this together, babe. What we need to is decide what we want to do about, not get into a fight."

"Sorry," Lucy said, realising that he was right. This was not his fault, and he was trying to be there for her. She walked over and slumped down on the bench. "I don't know what we can do about it," she said frankly. "It's pretty much out of our hands now, isn't it?"

Seth sat down beside her. "Yes and no. We can't stop the rumours, but there's a big difference between rumours and out relationship being confirmed, made official I guess you could call it, by us. We still get to decide when that happens."

"True," Lucy said. "I hope you won't be offended if I say I don't want to do that yet? I was hoping we could get through Wrestlemania week at least before we said anything. I didn't want to have to do Axxess with everyone asking questions about my private life all the time, you know. Although, that's probably going to happen anyway now," she realised even as she said it.

"I've got an idea," Seth said thoughtfully. "I might have the perfect time we could go official, if you want to avoid us being headline news."

"Oh?" Lucy inquired.

"Wrestlemania Sunday," Seth suggested. "We could make a video together, or go live on Instagram or something and say that we want to let everyone know that, yes, we are together. Within hours, everyone will have moved on to talking about 'Mania."

Lucy managed to give him a smile for the first time since she had walked into the room. "That's good. That's very good. You're a devious man, Seth Rollins. I can see what they based your heel character on."

"You'd better believe it," Seth said, smiling back at her. "As for people sending you abuse on Twitter or whatever? If they do, block them. I know you're not the kind of person who cares what people think of you. Everyone here knows that."

"That's true," Lucy said, cheering up a little. "If they want to be jealous of me because I'm with you and they're not, fuck them. They can kiss my arse. I guess it's another reason for people to boo me, though, not that more reasons seem to be needed," she added as an attempt at humour.

Seth shrugged. "That won't matter after 'Mania anyway. We're turning heel, remember?"

As if on cue, Dean walked into the locker room at that moment, followed by Roman. They had apparently bumped into each other somewhere. "Hunter wants to see us," Dean announced. "Something about changing the plans for us after Wrestlemania. I think they're shit canning our heel turn."

Lucy was quickly on her feet after hearing that. "What do you mean shit canning our heel turn?" she demanded, almost as if she blamed him for the news.

"There ain't many ways to mean that sentence," Dean said with plenty of irritation of his own.

"Alright, calm down," Roman told both of them firmly. Tensions were starting to run high in the Shield locker room for the first time in weeks. "Let's just go and speak to Hunter and see what he has to say. If we don't like it, we can tell him how we feel. Getting snippy with each other isn't going to help."

"You're right," Lucy conceded. "Sorry, Dean. It's not been a good day. I shouldn't have took your head off like that."

"Forget it," Dean said in acceptance of her apology as they all followed Roman out of the room.

Lucy walked beside Seth, with the two other men in front of them. "If Hunter does insist on taking this heel turn off us, I'm going to Steph with it," Lucy said, defaulting to the position of playing favourites which had caused her to be unpopular with the fans and with her colleagues in the first place. "We were promised a heel turn, and they had a good idea for it, too."

"Well, we weren't exactly sold on the creative," Seth reminded her. "The idea of kidnapping Stephanie getting heat on us wasn't a certainty by any means. But I wouldn't go to her behind Hunter's back if I was you. That kind of thing wouldn't go down well, and it would undo a lot of the hard work you've put in to start mending fences around here recently."

Although she could tell Seth was being the voice of reason, she was still not happy about the prospect of losing the heel turn she and the rest of the team had wanted. "So we're just supposed to get shit on and have our plans changed for no reason?" she asked grumpily.

"We don't know what the reason is yet," Roman pointed out. "That's why we're on our way to speak to the guy."

Lucy had to concede that point, so she continued walking in silence. She considered it a good thing that no one chose that moment to approach her or Seth and start asking personal questions, or she might have found herself in hot water for smacking someone in the face again. Another idea occurred to her and she spoke quietly to Seth. "Should we tell Hunter about us? He's going to start hearing rumours real soon."

"Good point," Seth said. "Yeah, it might not be a bad idea to be up front with him and tell him."

"Right," Lucy sighed, still not happy at all with how their secret had come out before they had been ready.

"Ah, come in, guys," Hunter said, standing up behind his desk to greet them when Roman lead the team into his office. To Lucy's disappointment, he was the only one in the room, probably by design, she realised. No McMahon's meant no potential for taking sides with Lucy Thorne.

"Hunter," Roman greeted the boss pleasantly on behalf of the group. "Dean was told you wanted to see us; something about changing our plans for after Wrestlemania and dropping our heel turn?"

There was nowhere for five people to sit and have a conversation in the office, so Hunter walked around the desk to stand in front of them. "That's right. There's been a development which means we need to shelve the plans we had for you."

Shelve was a better term for it than shit can, Lucy thought, suddenly trying not to smile.

"What development?" Dean asked in his usual direct style.

A smile appeared on Hunter's face. He was obviously proud of whatever he was about to say. They quickly found out why. "We've just signed Matt and Jeff Hardy," he announced.

"Oh!" Seth exclaimed, excited by the news himself.

"Exactly," Hunter said, still smiling. "Needless to say, their return is going to be a huge deal and they're going to get a great reception when they debut at Wrestlemania. They are going to be assigned to Raw, and obviously will be a face team. What we've decided is, we want to also have a big name face team on Smackdown. That's where you come in."

"You're trading us to Smackdown?" Lucy asked, unsure how she felt about that prospect. A change of scenery might not be a bad thing, but then she had just started to make friends in the Raw locker room at last.

"Not exactly trading you, no," Hunter replied. "You're still going to get 'fired' because of your loss at Wrestlemania. Nothing has been changed with regard to that match."

"So we get fired from Raw and then Shane signs us to Smackdown?" Seth guessed aloud.

"In basic terms, yes," Hunter said. He went on to outline the plan, trying his best to get all four of them to buy in to his pitch. "We would have a few weeks go by without you on either show. Then, the four of you are at ringside on Smackdown one night, as if you've bought tickets. During one of the matches, the action spills to the outside and someone from a heel team ends up going over the barrier and landing in your laps. The next thing we know, a punch is thrown and all hell breaks loose. The four of you end up in the ring, laying waste to everyone in sight. I can see the fans going wild for that. It would be hyped up like you've invaded the show and security would come and drag you out of the ring. Only later would we find out that you've actually been signed to contracts by Shane and you are actually now on the Smackdown roster."

Much to her surprise, Lucy actually liked the sound of the idea, not that she was going to give in that easily. "We liked the idea of turning heel," she said.

"I know," Hunter said, actually with some sympathy in his tone. "And we were set on giving it to you, until the opportunity to sign Matt and Jeff came up. Sometimes in business, as I'm sure I don't have to tell you, certain things come along that a company has to do, and that has a knock on effect for others."

"We get it," Roman answered courteously. "What about if we went with your idea with the showing up on Smackdown and coming out of the crowd and everything, but we did it as a heel turn? It was the heel turn we wanted, not necessarily the angle with you and Steph. The way you described it, it sounds more like the kind of thing heels would do anyway."

Hunter appeared unmoved by that suggestion. "We're looking for you to be the face team of Smackdown. We're lacking a real face team over there, since American Alpha don't quite have the backing we hoped for at the moment."

"Come on, H, we're looking for a bit of give and take here," Dean said. "We're happy to go with everything you're suggesting. We've not objected at all to moving to Smackdown, or to any of the creative you've just suggested. All we're asking for is a heel turn."

Before Hunter could respond, Seth jumped in. "We understand that you want a really popular face team on both shows. That totally makes sense. But the face team on Smackdown doesn't have to be us. Book us as the heels and have us build someone else as the face team. Whether it's American Alpha or anyone else you choose, put them in a program with us and we can put them over as faces."

"You're all dead set on turning heel?" Hunter asked, looking at each of the four people in front of him in turn. After getting positive responses from all of them, he said, "Leave it with me. I'll talk it over with Vince and we'll see what we can do. No promises, though."

"Thank you. We appreciate it," Roman said in his role as leader of the group.

"Okay, that's all for now," Hunter said with a hand gesture towards the door as he stood up from the edge of his desk. The meeting was over.

"Actually, Seth and I would like a word about something else," Lucy said as Roman and Dean made for the door.

"Alright," Hunter said easily. He waited for the door to close behind the two men, then said, "What can I do for you?"

Suddenly feeling awkward, Lucy didn't know exactly how to put what she wanted to tell him. "The thing is, uh, Seth and I... Well..."

"We've been dating each other for a few weeks," Seth helped out. "Someone's started spreading it around the locker room tonight, so we thought we should tell you. We figured you should hear it first hand."

"But we'd appreciate it if you kept it quiet," Lucy added. "We're not ready to go public yet, if you know what I mean."

If Hunter had any reaction to the news, he didn't let it show on his face. He simply nodded and said, "Thanks for letting me know. If it goes public, it won't be from me, Steph or Vince. You have my word on that."

"Thanks, H," Seth smiled.

"No problem," Hunter said, then gestured to the door again. "I have to get on, if there's nothing else?"

"No, that's all, thank you," Lucy said.

After she lead the way out of the office, Seth said, "I just told someone you're my girlfriend for the first time."

"And how did that make you feel?" Lucy asked studiously, hiding a grin.

"Proud," Seth answered honestly.

Lucy stopped in her tracks. When Seth looked at her, she looking into his eyes. It was the way he had said the word as much as the fact that he had chosen it which had melted her heart. "That's the sweetest thing you've said to me," she told him softly.

"Well I meant it," Seth said. He checked that no one was paying attention to them, then planted a quick kiss on her forehead.

In that moment, Lucy felt more love for him than she had at any point to date. She was close to saying the three magic words to him, but Enzo and Cass rounded a corner a bit further along the hallway and walked in their direction. Just like that, the moment was over.

"I could use a coffee, or something stronger," Lucy said, feeling frustrated again.

"How about coffee for now and something stronger tonight?" Seth suggested. "After all, there's no point in us sneaking around the hotel anymore."

"Deal," Lucy said as they started walking again.

 


	26. Chapter 26

As Seth and Lucy had predicted, gossip and rumours had not taken long at all to appear on Twitter after someone on the roster had figured they were seeing each other. And as soon as it had, as they had also predicted, Lucy had started to receive abusive tweets from some of the deluded fangirls who thought that it impacted their life directly in some way that Seth was off the market. Delusional did not even cover it, she thought.

None of the abusive things that had been said to her had surprised her; it was actually some of the nice tweets she had gotten that had seemed out of the ordinary. A lot of people seemed to be happy for her and Seth, on the assumption that the speculation about them being together was true. She had been tempted to like or retweet some of those messages to thank the people who had sent them, but doing so would have served as a confirmation that the relationship was a real thing. She and Seth had agreed on a specific time to provide that confirmation, and it was now only hours away. Publicising the news on the day of Wrestlemania was calculated to avoid their personal lives being headline news as much a possible.

The news of their relationship going public, albeit unofficially, had meant that they had needed to break the news to both of their families earlier than they had intended. That task had involved a Skype call to England in the case of the Thorne family, and a visit to Seth's childhood home in the case of Mr and Mrs Rollins. Thankfully, everyone had been happy with the news, and pleased with their family member's choice of partner. Getting that major hurdle out of the way had been a weight off of both of their minds.

That had been a few weeks before Wrestlemania. Now the big event was at hand, and Lucy had drawn the short straw when she had been assigned to the Sunday morning Wrestlemania Axxess session. Having to spend an hour of her morning meeting fans when she should have been preparing for the biggest event of her career was a long way from ideal. Ever keen to push her as one of WWE's biggest names, Vince McMahon had decided that she would be one of the Premium VIP's for Axxess, meaning that only fans who paid a significant amount extra would have the chance to meet her. From her point of view, that was a good thing as it theoretically meant the people who she had to interact with were actually fans of hers, and that would cut down the number of people who might ask her invasive personal questions about her relationship with Seth. There had been more than enough of that recently.

Another pleasant surprise had been the reaction of her colleagues in the locker room. Rather than being branded a slut as she had feared, she had gotten nothing but support and kind words from everyone, to her face at least. She imagined that her recent change in attitude had contributed a lot to that. If you made an effort to be nice to people, they were nice to you in return. Who knew?

One of WWE's crew members for Axxess approached her, interrupting her thoughts. "Are you ready, Lucy?" she asked. "The fans are in now, and there's a line ready at your stage."

One positive for this Axxess session was that she was not required to appear in her ring attire. Instead, a Shield T-shirt and jeans constituted her much more comfortable outfit. It was a good job, too, since WWE had decided to do away with the table on the VIP stages this year, meaning that she was going to have to stand the whole time. At least she would not have to worry about signing things, and it was a photo only opportunity. Still, she told herself pragmatically, it gave the fans a better experience for their money. Thanks to Seth's advice, she was doing her best to improve her fan interaction, which was perhaps making some small progress towards improving her standing with the audience. That, combined with being a part of The Shield, seemed to be finally taking the edge off of the boos that had plagued her career almost from the start. Just in time for the heel turn that the team had been granted after Wrestlemania, she thought with a grin.

"I'm ready," she told the crew member, allowing her to lead the way to the door which opening into the huge exhibition centre where Axxess was taking place. As she walked through the door, Lucy paused for a moment to take in the awe inspiring sight. The enormous room was absolutely heaving with fans as far as the eye could see. Her own stage was nearby, the area where fans had to wait in line already almost full to capacity. Boos or not, she still pulled in the merch sales and sold out her VIP Axxess wristbands.

Unsurprisingly, some fans had decided to gather around the door that the wrestlers were emerging from, trying to get some half-decent pictures on their phones with the VIP's they hadn't been able to buy wristbands for, for whatever reason. As soon as they saw her, several of the fans began screaming in delight and shouting her name in the vague hope that she might come over to them. The crew members wouldn't allow that to happen, given the strict time schedules everyone was working to, but she did pause for a second and smile for the benefit of the pictures the fans were trying to get.

With that done, Lucy approached her stage. As soon as she walked around the back of stage and emerged from behind the huge board with WWE logos on it, the fans in her line went crazy, cheering her arrival as if she had just won the Women's Championship for the first time.

"What's going on, guys?" she shouted loudly, getting another cheer in response.

Another male crew member was already on the stage, camera in hand. VIP wristbands guaranteed fans a professional photograph rather than one taken with their own phones. The guy took a moment to tell Lucy where he would like her to stand. She quickly downed a bottle of water that was offered to her by the female crew member, then, with a final reminder to herself to be as happy and friendly towards the fans as she could, it was time to begin.

A girl who looked to be in her late teens was the first to be invited onto the stage. She was wearing an almost exact replica of Lucy's Shield ring attire.

"Look at you!" Lucy exclaimed as she approached. "It looks better on you than it does on me!"

"Oh my God, Lucy, I've waited so long for the chance to meet you," the fan said excitedly, beaming from ear to ear. She reached Lucy and offered a hug, which Lucy was duty bound to accept. That was something she had not thought about ahead of time. This new standing arrangement was going to meant that there would be a lot of hugging going on. While that might have been a great prospect for someone like Bayley, it was not quite so high on her list of priorities.

"Well, it's good to meet you," she said as they parted from the brief hug. "Shall we get a picture?"

"Can we do the Shield fist bump thing?" the fan asked.

"Sure," Lucy agreed, posing as requested for the photo, touching her fist to the fan's leather gloved one.

The photographer took the shot and a crew member handed the fan a card with a number on it so that she could access it online when it was available. "How's Seth?" she asked before the crew member could escort her from the stage.

"Seth's doing great," Lucy smiled, which seemed to satisfy the fan. "Thanks for coming."

As she turned to greet the next fan, Lucy wondered how many times she was going to be asked that particular question over the course of the next hour by people who were fishing for relationship information. She could not wait until later in the day when she and Seth would finally put all of the speculation to rest.

* * *

"Hey, babe," Seth said when Lucy walked into their hotel room.

While she had been at the Axxess session, Seth had taken advantage of her absence in order to make a very important phone call to England that he had most definitely not wanted her to know about.

Due to how long it had taken her to get back from the convention centre, there was now not a great deal of time left before they had to leave for Camping World Stadium to prepare for Wrestlemania, but they already had packed all of their gear into their cases ahead of time, ready to go. All they really had to do before leaving was make their live video together to officially break the news of their relationship to the world.

"Hi," Lucy smiled, walking up to him and giving him a peck on the lips.

"How did the session go?" Seth asked. "I've seen some really nice pictures on Twitter. You looked like you were having a lot of fun."

"I actually enjoyed it," Lucy said. "Apart from the fact that almost everyone tried to fish for information about you, like I was going to whisper in their ear that I've been shagging you or something."

"Most of them probably just want to be happy for us," Seth said hopefully. "Speaking of, we should probably make our announcement, if you still want to do it? We've not got much time before we need to leave."

"I still want to do it," Lucy said definitively. "But, uh, what are we actually going to say?"

Seth chuckled. "I don't know, something like, Lucy and I just wanted to let you all know that we're in a relationship."

"Lucy and I are in a relationship," she said, mocking his serious sounding tone. "You make it sound like a White House press release or something."

"Okay, smart arse," Seth replied with a smile, mocking her English accent in turn. "You can say give them the news then, if that's what you want?"

"I'll say it if you want me to," Lucy said, more serious this time.

"Okay, you can do it," Seth said. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and loaded up the Instagram app. "Ready?" he asked before starting the live video.

Lucy was surprised by the nervous sensation she felt in the pit of her stomach. She was not a person who felt that way very often. The fact that she had never done a live Instagram video before was not particularly helping matters by making her feel uneasy. Being socially awkward was not a pleasant thing at times. "I'm ready," she confirmed, hiding her emotions as best she could. "We shouldn't say it straight off, though. We need to give it a minute for people to connect with us."

"Right," Seth agreed. "Okay, here we go. You can greet everyone once we're on." He stood beside her and put an arm around her shoulders, then started the live video and held the phone out in front of them so that they were both in the shot.

"Uh, hello?" Lucy said hesitantly. She could see people's usernames starting to connect to the chat and the first messages appearing. People were immediately losing their shit at seeing her and Seth together, with his arm around her.

Seth laughed. "That's your greeting, is it?" Then he addressed the rapidly increasing audience. "Hi, guys. Seth and Lucy here. Happy Wrestlemania day! How is everyone doing? Hyped up for the show?"

Messages were already rolling in so quickly that it was hard to read many of them. In any case, most of them were typical fan reactions such as, 'Love you guys!'

"I just got back from Axxess," Lucy said, still feeling awkward and unsure of what to say. "I got to meet a lot of awesome people today. How many of you were there?" The messages continued to pour in, and the number of viewers increased almost as rapidly. "They're going crazy," Lucy giggled. She knew that the reactions were going to be turned up to eleven as soon as they made their announcement.

"We're going to be heading up to the stadium soon," Seth told the camera. "Who's ready to see us kick some Authority ass tonight?"

"I think they are," Lucy smiled as she watched the responses scrolling up the screen at breakneck speed. Predictably, there we questions and expressions of joy relating to their relationship status as people figured out for themselves what the purpose of this live video might be.

"The reason we came on is we have something to tell you all," Seth announced, turning to look at Lucy. The honour of breaking the news was hers.

"That's right," she said, taking in a deep breath. She decided just to go for it. "What we wanted to let you know is that we're together. We've been seeing each other for a while now, as many of you have already guessed. We decided today that we wanted to break the news officially, and what better day to do it on than Wrestlemania Sunday, the best wrestling day of the year?"

The chat was exploding now with reactions ranging from love hearts to people claiming they had just died. One message in particular caught Seth's eye. "Seth, we want to see a kiss," he read out, then turned to Lucy again. "What do you think, babe? Shall we let them see a kiss?"

Looking into his eyes, Lucy couldn't help herself smiling, or agreeing to his request. "Okay," she said, then reached up to kiss him. They locked lips for a few seconds, then looked back at the chat. It was in meltdown.

"Okay, guys, that's all from us from us for now, we've got to get going," Seth announced, knowing that they really had to get down to the lobby for their transport to the stadium.

"Enjoy the show, everyone," Lucy added, giving the audience a little wave.

Seth killed the video, pocketed his phone then kissed her again, this time much more passionately. The moment he had planned weeks earlier had worked out about as perfectly as he could have hoped. It was time to say those magic words. "Lucy?" he said softly.

"What?" she asked, sensing what he might be about to say.

Taking her hand, Seth said, "I love you."

Lucy felt her heart miss a beat as she looked into his eyes. "I love you, too, Seth," she said gently.

They kissed again and held each other for a long moment, both wishing they didn't have to let go. Sadly, there was an event to get to, and they were running critically short of time.

"I suppose we need to get moving," Lucy said reluctantly.

"Yeah," Seth agreed with a sigh.

They quickly set about making last minute checks of their cases, checking that they had not missed anything. Glancing at Lucy to make sure she wasn't watching him, Seth crouched down and made sure to check one of the side pockets of his case in particular. He had felt the need to make doubly sure that the box containing the engagement ring was still in there.

"All set?" Lucy asked as she wheeled her case towards the door.

Seth stood up with a broad smile on his face. "Yep. I have everything I need for tonight."

END


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